Design for Living (film)
Encyclopedia
Design for Living is a 1933 American comedy film
produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch
. The screenplay by Ben Hecht
is based on the 1933 play of the same name
by Noël Coward
. It concerns a trio of artistic Americans in Paris and their complicated three-way relationship.
The film stars Fredric March
, Gary Cooper
, Miriam Hopkins
and Edward Everett Horton
. Criticism was mixed, with some critics praising the film, but many were ambivalent about its great departure from Coward's play. Coward said, "I'm told that there are three of my original lines left in the film – such original ones as 'Pass the mustard'."
Nevertheless the film was a box office success, ranking in as one of the top ten highest grossing of 1933. Also the three lead actors; March, Cooper and Hopkins all received notable attention from this film as they were all at the peak of their careers.
via train, commercial artist Gilda Farrell meets artist George Curtis and playwright Thomas Chambers, fellow Americans who share an apartment in the French capital. Gilda works for advertising executive Max Plunkett, who has had no success in his efforts to engage her in a romantic relationship. Tom and George each realizes the other is in love with Gilda, and although they agree to forget her, they cannot resist her when she comes to visit. Unable to choose between the two, she proposes she live with them as a friend, muse, and critic with the understanding they will not have sex.
Gilda arranges for a producer to read Tom's play and he goes to London
to oversee the staging of his work. During his absence, Gilda and George become involved romantically, much to Tom's consternation. One night at the theatre he meets Max, who tells him George has become highly successful. Tom returns to Paris and discovers George has vacated their apartment and moved into a penthouse
with Gilda. George is in Nice
painting a portrait, and Gilda and Tom rekindle their affair.
George returns and, realizing his former roommate and current lover have been trysting while he was away, orders the two to get out. Gilda decides to end the men's rivalry by marrying Max in Manhattan
, but is so upset when she receives potted plants from her former beaux she fails to consummate the marriage. When Max hosts a party for his advertising clients, Tom and George crash the event and hide in Gilda's bedroom. Max finds the three laughing on the bed and orders the men out, and a brawl ensues, prompting all the guests to depart. Gilda announces she is leaving her husband, and she, Tom, and George decide to return to Paris and their unusual living arrangement.
, Design for Living was a popular and critical hit starring Lynn Fontanne
, Alfred Lunt
and Coward, and its risqué ménage-à-trois
theme made it controversial. Design for Living was one of more than a dozen of Coward's plays made into feature films.
Ernst Lubitsch
initially asked Samson Raphaelson
to write the screenplay, but he had no interest in adapting Coward. The director then turned to Ben Hecht
, and they opted for a loose adaptation of Coward's plot, completely rewriting the play. In the original, the three main characters were sophisticated, urbane and cynical. Hecht changed the men's names, and the trio became naïve and exuberant, living the bohemian life worry-free in the middle of the Great Depression
.
Lubitsch hoped to cast Ronald Colman
and Leslie Howard
as the male leads, but Colman demanded too much money and Howard didn't want to risk comparisons to the play's original cast. The director originally cast Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
as George, but the actor contracted pneumonia
and had to withdraw just before filming began, and he was replaced by Gary Cooper
. Lubitsch cast Paramount
contract player Fredric March
as Tom. According to the New York State Writers Institute website, a highlight of the film is the scene where, while struggling at his playwriting, he begs Miriam Hopkins
, as Gilda, to smack him between the shoulder blades. Gilda was a role well-tailored for Hopkins' talents. Comic character actor
s Edward Everett Horton
and Franklin Pangborn
completed the principal cast.
Before officials began enforcing the Production Code in 1934, leading to censorship of sexuality from films, Paramount and other studios produced many with sexual or controversial content, including films starring Mae West
, W. C. Fields
and Marlene Dietrich
and the fantasy films of Josef von Sternberg
. From 1929 to 1934, Lubitsch "made Paramount the nec plus ultra of sophisticated sexiness," joyously weaving adult sexuality, cosmopolitan flair and a disdain for convention into his films, which included The Love Parade
, Monte Carlo
, Trouble in Paradise, The Smiling Lieutenant
, and One Hour with You
. Censorship difficulties arose with Design for Living due to sexual discussions and innuendos in the film. The Hays Office eventually approved it for release, but the film later was banned by the Legion of Decency, and in 1934 it was refused a certificate by the PCA for re-release under the strict new rules. The film's risqué subject matter also attracted press notice.
of The New York Times
said the film "may be only a skeleton of the parent work, but it has the same familiar rattle.... Notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Coward's clever lines were tossed to the four winds and that the whole action of the story is materially changed, Mr. Lubitsch, who knows his motion picture as few others do, has in this offering... fashioned a most entertaining and highly sophisticated subject, wherein his own sly humor is constantly in evidence. He has been ably aided and abetted by Mr. Hecht in this slaughter of the Coward play, and, if the original was sharper and brisker than the picture, the latter is filled with clever fun and the story, still with a decided Parisian flair, moves along swiftly and surely."
Time Out London observed, "Noël Coward's teacup wit and elegance hardly suits the beer glass temperament of his screen adapter Ben Hecht.... The script galumphs when it should glide, and neither the director nor the stellar cast can bring this would-be soufflé about a bohemian ménage-à-trois... to the right fluffy consistency."
, Peter Ibbetson
, The General Died at Dawn
, and Beau Geste
.
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch was a German-born film director. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch."In 1947 he received an Honorary Academy Award for his...
. The screenplay by Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...
is based on the 1933 play of the same name
Design for Living
Design for Living is a comedy play written by Noël Coward in 1932. It concerns a trio of artistic characters, Gilda, Otto and Leo, and their complicated three-way relationship. Originally written to star Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Coward, it was premiered on Broadway, partly because its risqué...
by Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
. It concerns a trio of artistic Americans in Paris and their complicated three-way relationship.
The film stars Fredric March
Fredric March
Fredric March was an American stage and film actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr...
, Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper
Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
, Miriam Hopkins
Miriam Hopkins
Ellen Miriam Hopkins was an American actress known for her versatility in a wide variety of roles.Hopkins was born in Savannah, Georgia, and raised in Bainbridge, a town in the state's southwest near the Alabama border...
and Edward Everett Horton
Edward Everett Horton
Edward Everett Horton was an American character actor. He had a long career in film, theater, radio, television and voice work for animated cartoons. He is especially known for his work in the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.-Early life:Horton was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Isabella...
. Criticism was mixed, with some critics praising the film, but many were ambivalent about its great departure from Coward's play. Coward said, "I'm told that there are three of my original lines left in the film – such original ones as 'Pass the mustard'."
Nevertheless the film was a box office success, ranking in as one of the top ten highest grossing of 1933. Also the three lead actors; March, Cooper and Hopkins all received notable attention from this film as they were all at the peak of their careers.
Plot
While en route to ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
via train, commercial artist Gilda Farrell meets artist George Curtis and playwright Thomas Chambers, fellow Americans who share an apartment in the French capital. Gilda works for advertising executive Max Plunkett, who has had no success in his efforts to engage her in a romantic relationship. Tom and George each realizes the other is in love with Gilda, and although they agree to forget her, they cannot resist her when she comes to visit. Unable to choose between the two, she proposes she live with them as a friend, muse, and critic with the understanding they will not have sex.
Gilda arranges for a producer to read Tom's play and he goes to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to oversee the staging of his work. During his absence, Gilda and George become involved romantically, much to Tom's consternation. One night at the theatre he meets Max, who tells him George has become highly successful. Tom returns to Paris and discovers George has vacated their apartment and moved into a penthouse
Penthouse apartment
A penthouse apartment or penthouse is an apartment that is on one of the highest floors of an apartment building. Penthouses are typically differentiated from other apartments by luxury features.-History:...
with Gilda. George is in Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
painting a portrait, and Gilda and Tom rekindle their affair.
George returns and, realizing his former roommate and current lover have been trysting while he was away, orders the two to get out. Gilda decides to end the men's rivalry by marrying Max in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, but is so upset when she receives potted plants from her former beaux she fails to consummate the marriage. When Max hosts a party for his advertising clients, Tom and George crash the event and hide in Gilda's bedroom. Max finds the three laughing on the bed and orders the men out, and a brawl ensues, prompting all the guests to depart. Gilda announces she is leaving her husband, and she, Tom, and George decide to return to Paris and their unusual living arrangement.
Cast
- Fredric MarchFredric MarchFredric March was an American stage and film actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr...
as Tom Chambers - Gary CooperGary CooperFrank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
as George Curtis - Miriam HopkinsMiriam HopkinsEllen Miriam Hopkins was an American actress known for her versatility in a wide variety of roles.Hopkins was born in Savannah, Georgia, and raised in Bainbridge, a town in the state's southwest near the Alabama border...
as Gilda Farrell - Edward Everett HortonEdward Everett HortonEdward Everett Horton was an American character actor. He had a long career in film, theater, radio, television and voice work for animated cartoons. He is especially known for his work in the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.-Early life:Horton was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Isabella...
as Max Plunkett - Franklin PangbornFranklin PangbornFranklin Pangborn was an American comedic character actor. Pangborn was famous for small, but memorable roles, with a comic flair. He appeared in many Preston Sturges movies as well as the W.C. Fields films International House, The Bank Dick, and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break...
as Mr. Douglas - Isabel JewellIsabel JewellIsabel Jewell was an American actress most active in the 1930s and early 1940s.-Early life and career:...
as Plunkett's Stenographer - Jane Darwell as Curtis' Housekeeper
- Wyndham StandingWyndham StandingWyndham Standing was an English film actor. He appeared in 131 films between 1915 and 1948. A popular and much beloved leading man in the silent film era, he starred and costarred along many famous names of the day, both men and women. He and Ronald Colman were the stars of the now lost classic...
as Max's Butler
Production
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Coward wrote a succession of popular hit plays. On BroadwayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, Design for Living was a popular and critical hit starring Lynn Fontanne
Lynn Fontanne
Lynn Fontanne was a British actress and major stage star in the United States for over 40 years. She teamed with her husband Alfred Lunt.She lived in the United States for more than 60 years but never relinquished her British citizenship. Lunt and Fontanne shared a special Tony Award in 1970...
, Alfred Lunt
Alfred Lunt
Alfred Lunt was an American stage director and actor, often identified for a long-time professional partnership with his wife, actress Lynn Fontanne...
and Coward, and its risqué ménage-à-trois
Ménage à trois
Ménage à trois is a French term which originally described a domestic arrangement in which three people having sexual relations occupy the same household – the phrase literally translates as "household of three"...
theme made it controversial. Design for Living was one of more than a dozen of Coward's plays made into feature films.
Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch was a German-born film director. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch."In 1947 he received an Honorary Academy Award for his...
initially asked Samson Raphaelson
Samson Raphaelson
Samson Raphaelson was an American screenwriter and playwright.Born in New York City, Raphaelson worked on nine films with Ernst Lubitsch, including Trouble in Paradise , The Shop Around the Corner , Heaven Can Wait , and That Lady in Ermine...
to write the screenplay, but he had no interest in adapting Coward. The director then turned to Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...
, and they opted for a loose adaptation of Coward's plot, completely rewriting the play. In the original, the three main characters were sophisticated, urbane and cynical. Hecht changed the men's names, and the trio became naïve and exuberant, living the bohemian life worry-free in the middle of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
.
Lubitsch hoped to cast Ronald Colman
Ronald Colman
Ronald Charles Colman was an English actor.-Early years:He was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, the second son and fourth child of Charles Colman and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His siblings included Eric, Edith, and Marjorie. He was educated at boarding school in Littlehampton, where he...
and Leslie Howard
Leslie Howard (actor)
Leslie Howard was an English stage and film actor, director, and producer. Among his best-known roles was Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind and roles in Berkeley Square , Of Human Bondage , The Scarlet Pimpernel , The Petrified Forest , Pygmalion , Intermezzo , Pimpernel Smith...
as the male leads, but Colman demanded too much money and Howard didn't want to risk comparisons to the play's original cast. The director originally cast Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. KBE was an American actor and a highly decorated naval officer of World War II.-Early life:...
as George, but the actor contracted pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
and had to withdraw just before filming began, and he was replaced by Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper
Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
. Lubitsch cast Paramount
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
contract player Fredric March
Fredric March
Fredric March was an American stage and film actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr...
as Tom. According to the New York State Writers Institute website, a highlight of the film is the scene where, while struggling at his playwriting, he begs Miriam Hopkins
Miriam Hopkins
Ellen Miriam Hopkins was an American actress known for her versatility in a wide variety of roles.Hopkins was born in Savannah, Georgia, and raised in Bainbridge, a town in the state's southwest near the Alabama border...
, as Gilda, to smack him between the shoulder blades. Gilda was a role well-tailored for Hopkins' talents. Comic character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
s Edward Everett Horton
Edward Everett Horton
Edward Everett Horton was an American character actor. He had a long career in film, theater, radio, television and voice work for animated cartoons. He is especially known for his work in the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.-Early life:Horton was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Isabella...
and Franklin Pangborn
Franklin Pangborn
Franklin Pangborn was an American comedic character actor. Pangborn was famous for small, but memorable roles, with a comic flair. He appeared in many Preston Sturges movies as well as the W.C. Fields films International House, The Bank Dick, and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break...
completed the principal cast.
Before officials began enforcing the Production Code in 1934, leading to censorship of sexuality from films, Paramount and other studios produced many with sexual or controversial content, including films starring Mae West
Mae West
Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....
, W. C. Fields
W. C. Fields
William Claude Dukenfield , better known as W. C. Fields, was an American comedian, actor, juggler and writer...
and Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
and the fantasy films of Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg — born Jonas Sternberg — was an Austrian-American film director. He is particularly noted for his distinctive mise en scène, use of lighting and soft lens, and seven-film collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich.-Youth:Von Sternberg was born Jonas Sternberg to a Jewish...
. From 1929 to 1934, Lubitsch "made Paramount the nec plus ultra of sophisticated sexiness," joyously weaving adult sexuality, cosmopolitan flair and a disdain for convention into his films, which included The Love Parade
The Love Parade
The Love Parade is a 1929 musical comedy film about the marital difficulties of Queen Louise of Sylvania and her consort, Count Alfred Renard...
, Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo (1930 film)
Monte Carlo is a 1930 American musical comedy film directed by Ernst Lubitsch. It stars Jeanette MacDonald as Countess Helene Mara. The film is also notable for the song "Beyond the Blue Horizon", which was written for the film and was performed by Jeanette MacDonald. The film was also hailed by...
, Trouble in Paradise, The Smiling Lieutenant
The Smiling Lieutenant
The Smiling Lieutenant is an American film directed by Ernst Lubitsch, starring Maurice Chevalier and Claudette Colbert, and released by Paramount Pictures.-Production background:...
, and One Hour with You
One Hour with You
One Hour with You is a 1932 American film. It was produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch and written by Samson Raphaelson, from the Lothar Schmidt play Only a Dream....
. Censorship difficulties arose with Design for Living due to sexual discussions and innuendos in the film. The Hays Office eventually approved it for release, but the film later was banned by the Legion of Decency, and in 1934 it was refused a certificate by the PCA for re-release under the strict new rules. The film's risqué subject matter also attracted press notice.
Critical reception
Mordaunt HallMordaunt Hall
Mordaunt Hall was the first regularly assigned motion picture critic for The New York Times, from October 1924 to September 1934....
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
said the film "may be only a skeleton of the parent work, but it has the same familiar rattle.... Notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Coward's clever lines were tossed to the four winds and that the whole action of the story is materially changed, Mr. Lubitsch, who knows his motion picture as few others do, has in this offering... fashioned a most entertaining and highly sophisticated subject, wherein his own sly humor is constantly in evidence. He has been ably aided and abetted by Mr. Hecht in this slaughter of the Coward play, and, if the original was sharper and brisker than the picture, the latter is filled with clever fun and the story, still with a decided Parisian flair, moves along swiftly and surely."
Time Out London observed, "Noël Coward's teacup wit and elegance hardly suits the beer glass temperament of his screen adapter Ben Hecht.... The script galumphs when it should glide, and neither the director nor the stellar cast can bring this would-be soufflé about a bohemian ménage-à-trois... to the right fluffy consistency."
DVD release
The film was released on DVD on May 31, 2005 as part of The Gary Cooper Collection, which also includes The Lives of a Bengal LancerThe Lives of a Bengal Lancer
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer is a 1935 American adventure film loosely adapted from the 1930 book of the same name by Francis Yeats-Brown. The plot of the movie, which bears little resemblance to Yeats-Brown's memoir, concerns British soldiers defending the borders of India against rebellious...
, Peter Ibbetson
Peter Ibbetson
Peter Ibbetson is an American black-and-white drama film released in 1935 and directed by Henry Hathaway.The picture is based on a novel by George du Maurier, first published in 1891. In 1917, du Maurier's story was adapted into a very successful Broadway play starring John Barrymore, Lionel...
, The General Died at Dawn
The General Died at Dawn
The General Died at Dawn is a 1936 film that tells the story of a mercenary who meets a beautiful girl while trying to keep arms from getting to a vicious warlord in war-torn China. The movie was written by Charles G. Booth and Clifford Odets, and directed by Lewis Milestone.It stars Gary Cooper,...
, and Beau Geste
Beau Geste (1939 film)
Beau Geste is a 1939 film produced by Paramount Pictures based on the novel of the same name by P. C. Wren. It was directed and produced by William A. Wellman from a screenplay by Robert Carson...
.
Further reading
- Dickens, Homer, The Films of Gary Cooper. Secaucus, New Jersey: The Citadel Press 1971 ISBN 0-806-50010-7