#40
Post
by Gregory » Sat Jun 13, 2015 2:50 pm
Well, I enjoyed seeing this again, but I'm not sure it's a film that would stand up to much of a critical viewing. Even evaluating it as no more than a breezy early '30s comedy, it could have been a lot cleverer. The main device of the film, the ménage a trois or "gentlemen's agreement," isn't even the fertile ground for entertaining situations that viewers may be inclined to expect. But I do love the wonderful pre-code film moment in which Hopkins reclines on a bed and announces that, "unfortunately, I'm no gentleman." I'd like to read the Coward play to see if the writing is wittier (which I'd predict it to be); I understand the play and the screenplay were pretty different. Cooper isn't bad but was arguably miscast. For excample, he seems really out of his element doing a funny-drunk bit.
One flaw, for me, is the way the film falls back on the common comedic premise of a division between the group and world of the fun, devil-may-care, attractive, romantic people (our main trio) vs. the group and world of the small-minded, boring, physically unattractive, conservative stuffed-shirts (Everett-Horton, the faceless Eaglebauer, etc.). This can be done well, but it's not necessarily a promising setup and is easy to write lazily. Many of those in the "fun" category in this film and many of the lesser screwballs strike me as simple archetypes rather than fully formed characters, yet are appealingly carefree and romantic, scoring points by tweaking the noses of the boring stuffed shirts, who seem to exist in Design for Living for only that purpose. I don't think for a second that Hopkins will really end up married to Everett-Horton.
And moreover, another problem, I'm not sure I care who she does end up with—Cooper or March, or both. They're written as kind of boring, unoriginal borderline cads who are interested in Hopkins for the fun of it and to have her as a muse, not to spend the rest of their life with her.
The ending is intriguingly against marriage as a teleology for all the story's interactions, as Hopkins gravitates away from her marriage back into the triad where she fits. Because this idea was unacceptable for its time that the story almost has to end as soon as it happens. The triad arrangement will likely lead to more conflict, uncertainly, and hurt feelings, but that doesn't even matter because boy, they sure showed that stuffy Eaglebauer and his ilk! And now the three are off to live on luck and their unbeatable artistic talents... what could possibly go wrong?
I've written this focusing on my doubts to see if anyone shares them or has thoughts on all this, but I don't mean to give the impression that I dislike the film; I don't, but it may be little more than an attractive Lubitsch comedy of its era that coasts on its charm too much.
Last edited by
Gregory on Tue Jan 26, 2016 5:01 am, edited 1 time in total.