Directed by the great Ernst Lubitsch, who never made a bad movie, it tackles subject matter that Hollywood would take decades to even think about broaching again, and does it with effortless pep and boundless enthusiasm. To be more specific: It’s a romcom about a throuple, and, in the 90-plus intervening years, we have yet to see a better one.
Miriam Hopkins plays Gilda Farrell, a commercial artist who meets two fellow Americans on a train to Paris: Playwright Tom Chambers (Fredric March) and painter George Curtis (Gary Cooper). They both fall in love with Gilda, but she can’t choose between them, so they try out a platonic three-way living arrangement — which naturally doesn’t go quite as planned. Smart, delightful, and armed with one of Ben Hecht’s sharpest scripts, “Design for Living” also has the distinction of being a lot more advanced and open-minded in its understanding of love and companionship than most contemporary films.
