Design for Living is a pre-code era film. It's one that I didn't have to research or watch some intro from Ben Mankiewicz on TCM to tell me it was pre-code. It is by far the oldest film I have ever watched which actually used the word "sex," and had an entire plot based around extramarital sexual relationships. I'm not that big of a prude, and I can watch movies about people who are a bit promiscuous. I imagine some people might really appreciate that Miriam Hopkins turns the tables on what audiences expected at the time. A woman is allowed to love 2 men and be indecisive about who she should be with, which is the polar opposite of what people anticipate in the 1930s.
While I can tolerate people sleeping with several suitors, I have a much harder time with people sleeping AROUND on their significant other. Infidelity is just irritating to me, and hurts my opinion of the characters. Design for Living is a movie whose primary theme is infidelity. I quickly lose respect for Miriam Hopkins' character, and don't much care for Fredric March or Gary Cooper's characters either, as they have no self-control. The extremely brief amount of time this movie spends showing the 3 main characters as best of friends who work well together without letting sex get in the way is really the only highlight of the film for me. I'm sure Design for Living was bold for its time, but even if it was a legendary groundbreaking film, that doesn't change the fact that I found it more frustrating than interesting.
While I can tolerate people sleeping with several suitors, I have a much harder time with people sleeping AROUND on their significant other. Infidelity is just irritating to me, and hurts my opinion of the characters. Design for Living is a movie whose primary theme is infidelity. I quickly lose respect for Miriam Hopkins' character, and don't much care for Fredric March or Gary Cooper's characters either, as they have no self-control. The extremely brief amount of time this movie spends showing the 3 main characters as best of friends who work well together without letting sex get in the way is really the only highlight of the film for me. I'm sure Design for Living was bold for its time, but even if it was a legendary groundbreaking film, that doesn't change the fact that I found it more frustrating than interesting.