DESIGN FOR LIVING

US, 1933, 91 minutes, Black-and-white.

Fredric March, Gary Cooper, Miriam Hopkins, Edward Everett Horton, Franklin Pangborn, Jane Dale will.

Directed by Ernst Lubitsch.

There is a phrase, The Lubitch Touch. It is evident here in this light romantic comedy – with irony. The screenplay, by celebrated writer Ben Hecht, is based on a play by Noel Coward although commentators note that there is very little of Coward dialogue here.

The film opens on a French train, two central characters asleep, Miriam Hopkins Gilda arriving, sketching them – Gary Cooper an artist, Fredric March an unproduced playwright. The film shows the two men in pursuit of Gilda, she flirtatious, hard to get, involved with her boss of five years played by Edward Everett Horton in his usual bumbling performance.

The screenplay is a series of contrived encounters, Gilda playing one off against the other, the two men with their rivalries but also with gentlemen’s agreements. And their hostility towards Edward Everett Horton.

The film is full of smart dialogue, flirtatious situations. It is a surprise to see Fredric March at the beginning of his career (having just won an Oscar for Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and appearing in DeMille’s Sign of the Cross at this time), Gary Cooper more of an action hero. He was to appear later in Lubitsch’s Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife.

Lubitsch was later to direct the classics, Ninotchka and To Be or Not To Be.