Posted on Saturday, 16 July 2011

DESIGN FOR LIVING (Lubitsch, 1933) - The love triangle is one of the age-old devices for narrative tension, but it generates very little drama in this film, just puzzlement: why should Miriam Hopkins have to choose between Gary Cooper and Fredric March? And - more puzzling - why would she ever go for Edward Everett Horton (funny though he is) instead? The movie being a Lubitsch, it’s all very pleasant to look at and often funny, but I missed a certain sparkle that I found in some of his other movies (eg. TO BE OR NOT TO BE or NINOTCHKA)

DESIGN FOR LIVING (Lubitsch, 1933) - The love triangle is one of the age-old devices for narrative tension, but it generates very little drama in this film, just puzzlement: why should Miriam Hopkins have to choose between Gary Cooper and Fredric March? And - more puzzling - why would she ever go for Edward Everett Horton (funny though he is) instead? The movie being a Lubitsch, it’s all very pleasant to look at and often funny, but I missed a certain sparkle that I found in some of his other movies (eg. TO BE OR NOT TO BE or NINOTCHKA)

2 notes

  1. notesonfilms posted this