Three serenade
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Three serenade |
| Original title | Design for Living |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1933 |
| length | 88 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Ernst Lubitsch |
| script | Ben Hecht after Noël Coward |
| music | John Leipold |
| camera | Victor Milner |
| cut | Frances Marsh |
| occupation | |
| |
Serenade zu threes (Original: Design for Living ) is an American comedy film by Ernst Lubitsch from 1933. The film is loosely based on a template by Noël Coward .
action
On the train, Tom Chambers and George Curtis meet the illustrator Gilda Farrell, with whom they both fall spontaneously. Gilda, coming from the advertising business, is used to quick-wittedness. She strongly advises George to give up his art, but that doesn't prevent him from flirting with her.
George lives with Tom in a small Parisian attic apartment. When the two realize that they are both idolatrously in love with Gilda, they swear to be friendship with men. It seems all too logical to them to advertise Gilda individually and still take action against their comrade-in-arms, advertising specialist Max Plunkett. However, Gilda knows how to gain some advantages from this new constellation. Together they make a gentleman's agreement to leave sex out of the game.
Gilda actively promotes the careers of her two artists and with great success. Tom's theatrical comedy becomes a sensational success in distant London, and Gilda and George get closer to each other at home in Paris.
When George has business in Nice, Tom unexpectedly returns home to Paris. The tide is turning and now Tom has Gilda all to himself. When George returns home, there is a scandal. Gilda skilfully saves herself from the affair by getting involved with Max Plunkett and spontaneously marrying him.
But she soon regrets her decision, as she cannot gain anything from her imposed social obligations. Only when her forgotten old friends reappear, Gilda decides again for George and Tom. When they leave the back of the taxi they renew their gentleman's agreement.
background
Noël Coward had a big hit in 1932 as the author of the play Design for Living , the frivolous love triangle between two men and a woman. The play celebrated triumphs on Broadway and, alongside Coward himself, had the most famous couple in American theater history, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne , in the leading roles . The dialogues and situations were daring and sometimes also frivolous, so that a film was hardly possible even under the rather lax regulations that applied before the Hays Code came into force .
It was Ernst Lubitsch who took on the task. Since the mid-1920s he was known as a successful director of slightly ambiguous stories and his tactful handling of even delicate situations became known as the Lubitsch Touch . The director had just shot his personal favorite Trouble in Paradise with Kay Francis and Miriam Hopkins . Paramount Pictures , his home studio, had acquired the rights to Design For Living for $ 50,000 , and Lubitsch wanted to write the script himself. In the end, however, Ben Hecht was commissioned to create a script, and he too received $ 50,000 for his work. Hecht managed to write a version that took over the vague basic features of the play and reduced overly offensive lines and dialogues to an acceptable level. In Hecht's own words, his script still contained a single line from the original, and that only
- for the good of our immortal souls.
Casting the female lead was easy as Miriam Hopkins was Lubitsch's personal favorite at the time. It was difficult to choose the two men in the play. At first Lubitsch toyed with the idea of signing Ronald Colman and Leslie Howard and then fell victim to Fredric March and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Fairbanks fell ill with pneumonia and, surprisingly, Lubitsch replaced him with Gary Cooper . He hadn't played a single comedy before. The director defended his choice with financial considerations. Cooper was one of the biggest stars at Paramount, after all, and had a large and loyal following. In Lubitsch's own words
- Noel Coward means nothing to most of them. Gary Cooper means something to them, and they will be happy to see that he is an accomplished light comedian.
Cooper and Lubitsch were to shoot two more comedies: Desire from 1936 with Marlene Dietrich and Lubitsch as executive producers and Bluebeard's eighth wife two years later at the side of Claudette Colbert .
Reviews
On the occasion of its German television premiere on January 8, 1970 in the ARD program, the Protestant film observer drew the following conclusion: “Ernst Lubitsch's briskly staged, refreshingly played comedy about this tricky triangle is still delicious even after 35 years. “Even the lexicon of international films is not short of praise:“ Frivolous Lubitsch comedy with biting puns and deceitful charm, which thrives on the art of suggestion, ambiguity and allusions as well as a permanent change of perspective in image and sound. Lubitsch ironizes social moral concepts by letting his characters experiment with possible and impossible forms of 'platonic love'. "
Web links
- Design for Living in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Design for Living at Turner Classic Movies (English)
- Official photos on Filmstarts.de