Design for Living *** (1933, Fredric March, Gary Cooper, Miriam Hopkins) – Classic Movie Review 5419

Noël Coward’s enjoyably ambiguous ménage à trois play gets the famous golden touch from producer-director Ernst Lubitsch, in this light-hearted, fairly sparkling 1933 movie version of a great sophisticated night in the theatre.

The star casting of Fredric March, Gary Cooper and Miriam Hopkins isn’t perfect, but it’ll do as painter Cooper and writer March fight over Hopkins. Edward Everett Horton and Franklin Pangborn show the three of them how to play Coward as if to the manner born.

Alas, the play’s text had to be cleaned up as its theme was judged too modern for Thirties movie-goers’ sensibilities, and screen-writer Ben Hecht also has changed too many of Coward’s smart lines for his own less witty ones. But at least he has kept the faith to the spirit of the piece.

And the film is remarkably tight and economical at a brisk-running 89 minutes, admirably so since brevity is the soul of wit. It says so in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, so it must be true.

Also in the cast are Isabel Jewell, Helena Phillips, James Donlin, Jane Darwell, Mary Gordon and Wyndham Standing.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5419

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