A minor Lubitsch fluff transposes No?l Coward’s eponymous play onto the celluloid (but in only bare-bones terms), DESIGN FOR LIVING is a witty but stuffy comedy hammers out an uncharacteristic denouement for a risquéthree-way relationship between two men and a woman, a progenitor of Fran?ois Truffaut’s JULES AND JIM (1962).

Three Americans in Paris, best friends and roomies, struggling artists Tom Chambers (March) and George Curtis (Cooper) both are swept off their feet by a chic girl Gilda Farrell (Hopkins), who reciprocates them with isometric amount of affection, before soon a platonic ménage-à-trois under the same roof is propounded and accepted with a tripartite agreement, only sabotaged when one party is away in London for his burgeoning playwright career, the remaining two becomes an item, occasioning a crack in two men's friendship, and a seesawing Gilda has only one exit route when she is again, impelled to make the impossible choosing, leaving both and hurriedly marries to her long-time admirer Max Plunkett (Horton, utterly jolly in his priggish, business-oriented persona), which turns out to be an exasperating mistake on her part.

It is a jocose folie-à-trois panning out like a heady and mellifluous minuet, predominantly confined itself within interior spaces, aptly conceals its hanky-panky business off the screen (released within a whisker of the advent of the notorious Hays Code), but revels in its proto-screwball faux-na?f characterization to the hilt. The trio leads are all up for it, although acting side by side, a debonair March fairly eclipses an impetuous Cooper in his sonorous diction and unperturbed demeanor, but the cynosure here is a ripsnorting Hopkins, exerts her high-wire balancing act between two emblems of idealized American masculinity and only comically falls prey of her own indecision in the slapdash third act, as a matter of fact, Lubitsch cunningly expurgates all the frills and trimmings from his camera (including a climactic brawl, vanishingly completed in a trice), less is more, this blithe rom-com once again bears witness to Lubitsh’s master-class aptitude of economic elegance under the Studio system.

companion pieces: Lubitsch’s ONE HOUR WITH YOU (1932, 7.1/10), HEAVEN CAN WAIT (1943, 7.9/10).

《愛情無計》，恩斯特?劉別謙拍于1933年的有聲片。

八十年前，劉大師就創(chuàng)作出了之后特呂弗拍攝的《祖與占》中的兩性游戲規(guī)則，但這完全是兩種不同風(fēng)格的樣式，說是三角戀亦可，說是四角戀亦然。也許五十年代的特呂弗受過其影響。

因為《愛情無計》就拍于五光十色的巴黎。兩個美國佬在巴黎共享一間房子，劇作家與畫家整天疲于奔命，日子過得狼狽不堪。一次火車上與漂亮頑皮女子的相遇，徹底改變了他倆的人生軌跡。爛泥糊上了墻頭，劇作家倫敦火爆，畫家在法國名聲鵲起，好運紛至沓來。

而好女子只有一個，且她的“監(jiān)護人”還時常過度關(guān)照?！熬訁f(xié)定”只是理性時候的產(chǎn)物。沖動是魔鬼，感情一來，什么都拋在九霄云外。風(fēng)水輪流轉(zhuǎn)，先是畫家，后是劇作家，再是“監(jiān)護人”，可謂你方唱罷我登場，但好戲終有收場之時，妙不可言就在結(jié)束之期，三人又開始了盡興的美好人生，實在是余味不盡。

這是劉大師改編自英國劇作家諾埃爾·考沃德的同名舞臺劇，王爾德式的敏銳和尖酸，經(jīng)過嶄新的過濾，既保留了對上流社會悠閑階級的洞悉，又增添了都會男女的觸覺。真正的都市情感猛片，永遠(yuǎn)也不會過時，盡管她已八十歲。加里·庫柏與弗雷德里克?馬奇演到了極致。

2012、9、4