Design for Living (1933)

Directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Starring Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Gary Cooper, Edward Everett Horton, Franklin Pangborn, Jane Darwell.

Limp Lubitsch ought to be one of his sauciest offerings considering the premise, but it tries to be both sly and pronounced, which always bungles frivolous wit. Hopkins can’t decide between playwright March and painter Cooper, so the three of them enter into a “gentleman’s agreement” to keep it platonic, but as she indelibly puts it, “unfortunately, [she is] no gentleman.” Hopkins tackles her tailor-made role with aplomb, and March is a good fit as a jaunty romantic, but Cooper is all thumbs as a wannabe sophisticate, so ill-prepared to meet the dizzying challenge from his co-stars that he looks befuddled most of the time. The general spirit of Noël Coward’s play is intact, but the characterizations were adjusted, and hardly any of the words are his; they were penned by screenwriter Ben Hecht instead, which may explain why the pre-Code humor feels pulled between two delivery ideologies. (Who’s to blame for the sluggish pacing, however, is less clear.) The radical nature of the film’s female empowerment when it comes to weaponizing sex for benefit is appreciated, but one suspects that only Lubitsch’s most bald-faced devotees would lump this one in with the director’s champagne efforts.

55/100