Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Designing Woman

Here comes another “battle of the sexes” style romantic comedy in the tradition of the Hepburn/Tracy vehicles – DESIGNING WOMAN. Only, in this one, Lauren Bacall plays Hepburn and Gregory Peck plays Tracy.

Bacall and Peck meet one drunken evening on separate business trips in Beverly Hills and quickly fall in love and get married. It isn’t until they return to New York that they realize they come from two different worlds. Bacall is a glamorous, successful fashion designer – a designing woman, if you will -- with a bunch of artsy fartsy friends, a big extravagant apartment, and nine wardrobe changes per day. Peck, on the other hand, is a messy, alcoholic sportswriter who hangs out at poker games and boxing matches and has run afoul of the local criminal element by constantly writing about a crooked boxing promoter (Martin Daylor).

Some the film involves Bacall and Peck alternatively annoying each other with their groups of friends and favorite pass-times, but most of it is sidetracked with Peck’s two big cover-ups – he’s hiding his trouble with the gangsters from Bacall as well as his previous relationship with a song and dance girl (Dolores Gray) who is featured in the production Bacall is currently designing costumes for.

The ex-girlfriend investigation on Bacall’s part and lying on Peck’s part is the tired old stuff that still gets trotted out for romantic comedies today. The gangster subplot is supposed to be comical, but it’s a little alarming that these characters’ lives are really on the line in such an otherwise lighthearted comedy. I mean, honestly, what in hell does a gangster vendetta have anything to do with an odd couple marriage comedy? The odd couple marriage premise didn’t have enough juice to fuel the plot, so they had to bring in gangsters? Come on.

Bacall and Peck are good, as usual, and there are some funny supporting actors as well including Mickey Shaughnessy as a punch-drunk ex-boxer and Jack Cole as an effete choreographer who, in the best pay off in the film, can kick ass when he needs to.

I suppose the film is best remembered today for two things – the featured fashions by costume designer Helen Rose and the Oscar-winning screenplay by George Wells. Unfortunately both aspects leave a little to be desired – I’m not fashion expert, but I felt like the film gave short shrift to the fashion world, especially considering the movie is called DESIGNING WOMAN. As an example, the film FUNNY FACE, from the same year, much more fully exploited the premise of a story taking place in the fashion world.

The screenplay is clever, at times, but must have seemed a lot more fresh and unique back in 1957 than it does today. Gimmicks like characters talking directly to the camera, as if being interviewed, multiple narrators giving multiple takes on the action, and gags based on character perception, like Peck’s audible and visible hangover, are all more modern than you’d normally see in a flick from this era. I assume in 1957 it was enough that these tricks were employed at all – these days, it’d be nice if they worked like clockwork instead of being a little clunky and over-written.

I feel like I’m shitting on the movie more than it deserves though. It’s not as if it is terrible, it’s just not great. It seems a little flat and bland, especially watching it the day after A FISH CALLED WANDA -- a film that is almost 25 years old and still feels more fresh and alive than many films made today.