PopCult Reviews

Design for Living (1933)
Written by Noel Coward & Ben Hecht
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch

With Ernst Lubitsch’s penchant for directing films based on stage plays, it made sense that Noel Coward’s work would eventually cross his desk. Coward was a gay man living in a time where being out was a perilous move, so he was never publicly open about his sexuality. However, when you see him acting or in an interview, it becomes pretty apparent he is not straight. Because Coward was both queer and an artist, the people who regularly crossed his path also lived outside society’s rigid norms. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were two acting friends of Coward’s with whom he became very close. He promised that one day he would write a play about them, and when they were famous, they would star in it. This play would be about an unconventional relationship between three people and would eventually be adapted into this Hollywood feature film.

Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Written by Samson Raphaelson, Grover Jones, and Ernst Lubitsch
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch

Ernst Lubitsch turned his back on his father’s tailoring business to go into movies. Lubitsch was a German-born Ashkenazi Jew. By age 19, he was a member of a prestigious German theater, and two years later, he made his screen debut. After appearing in 30 films between 1912 and 1920, Lubitsch realized his passion was not in performing but as a writer and director. He garnered international acclaim with his German films. Of his three films released in 1921, all three ended up on The New York Times’ top movies list. By the end of 1921, Lubitsch was sailing to the United States, where he would begin a prolific career that would serve to influence other filmmakers, from Alfred Hitchcock to Billy Wilder to Martin Scorsese and more. The thing that makes Lubitsch’s work stand out from his contemporaries is maturity, particularly an acceptance that human beings have and enjoy sex.