Design for Living

Design for Living 

Directed by Ernst Lubitsch. 91 mins. (1933)

Gary Cooper – George Curtis

In bohemian Paris, an American painter and a playwright form an unconventional ménage à trois with a free-spirited woman who refuses to choose between them, proposing a platonic “gentleman’s agreement”—until jealousy, ambition, and desire test the limits of their modern arrangement.

Also starring Miriam Hopkins, Fredric March, Edward Everett Horton, and Franklin Pangborn.

Based on Noël Coward’s play Design for Living (1932), the film was adapted by Ben Hecht and became a celebrated example of Lubitsch’s sophisticated pre-Code comedies, notable for its frank treatment of sexuality and unconventional relationships.