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Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Design for Living (1933)

The plot in a nutshell: Three young, struggling, American artists are trying to make a living in Paris: Fredric March as Tom Chambers, Gary Cooper as George Curtis and Miriam Hopkins as Gilda Farrell.
Both of the men become romantically involved with Gilda.
Tom and George have been friends for many years and the romance threatens to break them up. This is unacceptable. The solution:
All work and no play. They call this their “gentleman's agreement”. Instead of hanky panky all their energies are to go into the MEN’S work. ( It was a given that the woman’s work had no merit and was not worth improvement!!) The woman’s role in the men's work was that of a ham fisted critic, all stick, no carrot. Funny

The art of both men progressed. Each man had a variety of successes.
But does the "gentleman's agreement" work? Well, Gilda was "no gentleman".