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Design for Living (1933)
Cast/Credits/Review (From the Movie Database at
TVGuide.com)
Plot Summary:
Design for Living was based on the stage comedy by Noel Coward, though little of his
dialogue actually made it to the screen. Playwright Fredric March and artist Gary Cooper
both fall in love with Miriam Hopkins, an American living in Paris. Both men love the
girl, and the girl can't make up her mind between the two men, so the threesome decide to
move in together--strictly platonically, of course. As the men gain in success and
prominence, the chasteness of the "menage a trois" begins to be threatened, and
soon both March and Cooper clash over Hopkins. She reacts by marrying her wealthy but dull
boss (Edward Everett Horton). Miriam is bored to tears until March and Cooper invade one
of her husband's stuffy parties and chase the tiresome guests away. Miriam's husband
huffily agrees to a divorce, and the girl returns to her unorthodox relationship with her
two former suitors. The subtle homosexual implications of the Noel Coward stage original
were dissipated by the presence of the aggressively masculine Gary Cooper and Fredric
March in the film version of Design for Living. Replacing these implications were the
equally subtle but more "mainstream" boudoir innuendos of director Ernst
Lubitsch. -- Hal Erickson
Plot Summary from The All
Movie Guide.
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