This film is a total delight.
Every adjective I associate with Lubitsch comes to mind to describe Design for Living – witty, urbane, sophisticated, daring, tasteful, clever, sexy, playful, human – and every one is absolutely appropriate. it's my favorite Lubitsch film. It has a relationship triangle at its base like I’ve seen in many of his films, and the three sides of it are beautiful, funny and sincere characters. Miriam Hopkins plays an energetic, grounded Gilda who loves two men and marries a third when relations between her and the other two become too complicated. Fredric March’s Tom is one of the Americans that Gilda loves; he’s a smart, somewhat sophisticated young playwright. The third character, George, is played by Gary Cooper as a plainer American – tall, physical, and hugely sexy. I’d never seen this Gary Cooper and was surprised at his onscreen sensuality. Gilda balances herself between these two men, guiding the relationship among them with wit, charm and sex. So centered is Design for Living on this triangle that the credits even use the triangle as a motif.
Yet among all the verbal interplay and wit, there are serious emotions at stake. Gilda genuinely loves George and eventually breaks their no-sex vow to settle with him. George, for his part, deeply loves Gilda, too, and comes to count on her as they set up their household and experience George’s painting begin to take off. Unfortunately, Gilda also has a deep love for Tom, and as soon as he returns from England, she feels her love for him rekindle and decides they have to tell George they plan to move in together. She loves both, and complicating the love between Gilda and the men is the fact that the men have a deep bond also. While Tom has been in London, George has kept as a memento the old typewriter that Tom used, a visual symbol of their affection. The relationship among the three is thus a triangle, and they are bound together with real love, which raises the stakes each time their balance is shaken.
Design for Living also manages some gentle, if pointed, satire directed at capitalism and the moneyed class. As Gilda manages her two men, she steadily advises them to avoid selling out for money, and George specifically avoids taking a commission from a woman with a double chin. However, it is the hapless Max who most fully embodies these values as he constantly frets about pleasing potential advertising clients like cement makers. And not only is his personality profoundly practical if not mercenary, but compared to the young, creative trio, he is sexually impotent. After Gilda decides she can’t function loving both George and Tom, she finally agrees to Max’s persistent proposals and marries him to get away from the stress of loving the other two. The wedding flower that the two send, two drooping tulip stems, is unmistakably phallic, and Max’s anger at the flowers after his wedding night certainly suggests frustration at the two tulips. Design for Living has a good deal of criticism and satire of wealth and commerce.
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| “…unfortunately, I’m no gentleman.” |
The character of Gilda is another interesting aspect of the film. Women are often strong if not central to Lubitsch films, and that is doubly true here. Gilda controls and directs the two American boyfriends, determining their actions by hers. She sets the rules of their relationship (“no sex”) and decides when to break the rules (“…unfortunately, I’m no gentleman.”). She’s the agent behind the success of both of them. She holds Max away until she decides to marry him, and when she’s ready to leave him, she does so. She is comfortably with her own sexuality, choosing her partners at will. And she’s the one who, at the end, kisses both men on the lips, implying that the earlier “no sex” rule isn’t going to be in effect after the three begin their new, more mature triangular relationship. Gilda is the powerful female center to this film.
Design for Living is fun, light, witty and uplifting. Its openness and positive view of human nature is infectious, and it’s a movie that can stand up under multiple viewings. As I’m sure will be the case for me.
