Design for Living - A Film Directed by Ernst Lubitsch -1933 - Starring Fredric March, Gary Cooper and Mariam Hopkins- Set in Paris

 

Design for Living - A Film Directed by Ernst Lubitsch -1933 - Starring Fredric March, Gary Cooper and Mariam Hopkins- Set in Paris - based loosely on a 1932 play by Noel Coward - script by Ben Hecht - 128 Minutes

This post is part of my Participation in Paris in July 2023 - Hosted by Words and Peace 

https://wordsandpeace.com/2023/06/30/paris-in-july-2023/

The film is on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/Vh09SO9h91Q

 The quality of the video is grainy and the top portion of the actors heads are cut off. I know much better copies are available based on the the trailer and commentaries. The copyright holder NBC has blocked it for viewers in America but a VPN will help.

If you know of a better quality video on line please post the link in a comment.

I have no formal training in the cinema. I just enrolled in a promising history course at the University of Pennsylvania. I am researching online classes at major California universities, Harvard, Yale, and Oxford.  

Design for Life was made a year before Hollywood imposed a morals code on films in 1934.

It centers on the relationship of two American men, one a playwright the other an artist and a woman, played wonderfully by Mariam Hopkins, one of Ernst Lubitsch favourite actresses. She is a commercial artist.

The two men are sleeping in a train compartment traveling through France. Gilda enters the compartment and decides to sketch them. In the delightful open sequence the men think Gilda, an American, is French as she does them. They talk in French until they realise the situation.

Both of the men are infatuated with Gilda and she with them. They realize they are all struggling to get by in Paris and decide to live together.

Gilda: "Boys, it's the only thing we can do. Let's forget sex."

What Gilda tells the men when they set up their arrangements, telling them it is a "gentleman's agreement". Their apartment is shabby, Gilda pushes the men to work. She has been working for a wealthy man for five years who has unsuccessfully pursued a romance with her.

When Gilda starts having sex with both men she uttered a pure Lubitsch line.

"It's true we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman." 

Gary Cooper is kind of caste against type. In Design for Living he is fast talking and has a bad temper.

I don't want to reveal more of the plot. (Bard has a summary.)

The next film by Ernst Lubitsch I will post on is A Royal Scandal.

The next set in Paris movie will be Funny Face starring Audrey Hepburn.

Mel Ulm