IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023940/
IMDB rating: 7,6
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Main Cast: Fredric March, Gary Cooper, Miriam Hopkins, Edward Everett Horton, Isabel Jewell, Jane Darwell
"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.
When first released, Design for Living was assailed for the incredible liberties it took in transferring the material from stage to the screen. Indeed, director Ernst Lubitsch and screenwriter Ben Hecht kept only a single line of dialogue from the witty, sparkling Noel Coward comedy - and that one line was hardly itself distinguished. In other hands, this would have been a recipe for disaster; fortunately, Lubitsch and Hecht were enormous talents themselves, and the film they concocted from the barebones of Coward's play is sharply observed, slightly daffy and a total delight. It's true that Gary Cooper is a little out of place in high-style comedy of this sort; he's a little too 'downhome' to pull off some of what is asked of him. Nevertheless, his natural charisma is sufficient to overcome this deficiency, and his innate masculinity is used to interesting effect. On the other hand, Fredric March is right at home, turning in a deliciously comic performance that never takes a false turn. He's matched by Miriam Hopkins, creating some subtly wonderful variations on a madcap theme and proving irresistible in whatever she does.
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." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/design-for-living-v89216
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