DESIGNING WOMAN: Blu-ray (MGM, 1957) Warner Archive

There is an affecting moment in Vincente Minnelli’s Designing Woman (1957) where a relatively minor character, Broadway choreographer, Randy Owens (played by real-life choreographer, Jack Cole) confronts sports writer, Mike Hagen (Gregory Peck) on his veiled charge impugning his masculinity as ‘questionable’. Lest we forget, any inference to homosexuality in the buttoned-down 1950’s was akin to carpet-hauling someone for their communist sympathies. Indeed, George Wells’ screenplay deftly toys with the cliché of what it means to be a ‘real man’. Randy’s feminized flamboyance and unbridled creativity causes Mike to feel uncharacteristically squeamish in his presence. Without flinching, Randy pulls out a wallet-full of snapshots featuring his wife and children, leaving Mike sheepishly apologetic. In the movie’s climactic brawl, Randy’s balletic training saves the day, decimating a gaggle of Damon Runyon-esque hoods come to inflict their misery and muscle on Mike: Minnelli’s last word on misjudging the socially ‘out-of-sync’.  The rest of Designing Woman has absolutely nothing to do with this quest for social acceptance. But Minnelli, whose own sexual proclivities were frequently brought into contemplation, knew too well what an unkind – if thoroughly unfounded - rumor could do to one’s reputation. Herein, he draws the proverbial ‘line in the sand’; albeit, with undeniably uber-sophistication.

Designing Woman was, in fact, the brain child of MGM costumer, Helen Rose – who also fancied herself something of an aspiring screenwriter and idea woman. To this end, she pitched a pair of concepts to Metro’s ‘yes’ men. As per the first, with Leslie Caron in mind, but basically a rehash of Broadway’s Irene – the musical, and MGM’s forgettable forties rom/com, Her Highness and the Bellboy, the boys in the front offices said ‘no’. But to the second, Designing Woman, Rose found a sympathetic ear in Production Chief Dore Schary. Despite his lofty position at Metro, Schary was hardly satisfied. His edicts had been met with resistance from the old guard, while his yen for ‘message pictures’ was fast proving a disastrous fit for the studio’s glam/bam cavalcade of stars, increasingly underutilized until their contracts were allowed to quietly expire. MGM’s dwindling output of films in the mid-fifties remain a curiously insecure amalgam of Schary’s passion projects and testaments to the ole Mayer/Thalberg stardust; a battle royale slowly dividing the studio into two distinct factions. It kept the cameras rolling…for a time, but with the end of days for Metro’s seemingly indestructible style already on the horizon. Ambitious to a fault, Schary chose to ignore the obvious rigor mortis setting in; Designing Woman being a prime example of that queer disconnect between Schary’s passion, and his desperation for a smash hit.  

Designing Woman’s ‘he said/she told’ underpinnings hark all the way back to the tuxedoed urbanity of ultra-sophisticated screwball comedies from the 1940’s; albeit, now tricked out in MetroColor and Cinemascope. Regrettably, Designing Woman is deprived of the more erudite badinage usually afforded such ‘battle of the sexes’; herein, loosely replaced by a rather winning change of pace and genuine on-screen chemistry between co-stars, Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall; each, playing against type. Romantic comedy was hardly either star’s métier, although Peck had acquitted himself rather nicely as Audrey Hepburn’s beau in William Wyler’s Roman Holiday (1953). Even so, and while never daring to assuage the madcap farce in its totality of chaos, Peck and Bacall still do manage to infuse Designing Woman with a sort of unapologetic angst expected from such comedies of error about the mis-mated marriage. Rose’s concept was hardly ‘new’. Indeed, for all intent and purposes, Designing Woman is practically a remake of George Stevens’ Woman of the Year (1942) with one shameless rip-off from Leo McCarey’s The Awful Truth (1936); a French poodle and man’s shoe substituted for Wire Fox Terrier, Asta and a bowler.

Originally, Designing Woman was slated as a much different picture; Schary, making it one of his personally supervised productions to have starred Grace Kelly, James Stewart and Cyd Charisse. Now, that’s a picture I would like to have seen. Designing Woman would have marked a reunion for Kelly and Stewart, first appearing in Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954). If only Kelly had not upstaged Schary’s plans by announcing her departure from films after her latest movies, The Swan and High Society (both made and released in 1956); movie-land’s regal star heading for the even high(er)falutin and monied playgrounds of Monaco, as her Serene Highness Princess Grace. No use – Schary had lost out on the opportunity to oversee Kelly’s last picture. Even so, the window for him to personally supervise Designing Woman at all was also narrowing - and fast; Schary, already embroiled in misfires on the costly Raintree County (1957) whose epic implosion at the box office would oust him from Metro’s hallowed kingdom for good. Undaunted – and indeed, unknowing of this hiccup – Schary quickly reassembled Designing Woman with a new – though arguably, not improved roster of talent, assigning Vincente Minnelli to direct after his original choice, Joshua Logan, backed off, owing to Kelly’s departure.  

Ironically, none of Designing Woman’s trifecta of stars was under contract to MGM – the studio once home to ‘more stars than there are in heaven’. Instead, Peck and Bacall were freelancers. Grey’s contract with Metro had only just elapsed. As the headliner of this puff pastry, Peck’s $250,000 salary dwarfed his two female costars, each paid $75,000 for their services. It is a paradox of the fifties – or perhaps, merely, the decade as it survived on celluloid over at MGM, that, with an end to WWII the studio sought to return hopefully, or perhaps desperately, to the sort of all-star souffles concocted during the pre-war era, where men were men – and stylish - and women, the eye candy of their chosen affections, sumptuously sheathed in gowns by the studio’s then resident couturier, Adrian. Arguably, the screwball comedy was never light on something relevant to say about a ‘woman’s place in the home’ – frequently, the power behind the throne, gingerly to coax her man into accepting he was not the captain of this ship once the wedding ring had been firmly affixed to her finger. And certainly, in an era where the menfolk were off fighting in Europe, the screwball comedy of the late thirties and early forties was skewed to appeal to a primarily female audience, ensconced in that pantheon, much later, and laughingly, re-grouped in the public’s estimation as ‘the woman’s picture’. But the fifties’ derivation of the screwball had fast become a discomfited hybrid at best; particularly MGM’s ill-advised remakes, supped-up in Cinemascope, stereophonic sound and color, serving only to expose their inelegance and tongue-tied inability to ‘looking back’ without becoming maudlin and cloying.

In a decade overrun by these celluloid albatrosses, Designing Woman actually fares quite well; in no small way thanks to Minnelli’s debonair visualization, afforded all the bells and whistles Dore Schary could provide, and one minor hand-me-down. Dolores Gray warbles, ‘Music Is Better Than Words’ originally scored by André Previn with lyrics by Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Roger Edens for MGM’s 1955 musical, It’s Always Fair Weather. In the mid-fifties, Metro’s failing fiscal health resulted in severe cost-cutting. This affected virtually all departments across the board. However, Schary ignored this belt-tightening on Designing Woman; the picture, given twice the schedule of any other movie shooting on the back lot and even allowing Minnelli the luxury to go on location to Newport Beach Harbor, the Beverly Hills Hotel and Marineland. Perhaps Schary simply assumed the results would speak for themselves and pay off handsomely. If judging only by the $3,750,000 box office returns on an $1,844,000 budget, then definitely, the public response to Designing Woman bore out Schary’s faith in the project. Alas, with the cost of advertising/marketing, distribution and manufacture of prints, MGM reported a slight loss of $136,000; hardly, the bell-ringer pop-u-tainment of the year. Like so much of Metro’s weekly output that had made the studio’s name tantamount to Tinsel Town itself throughout the 1930’s and 40’s, Designing Woman quickly shaped up as an assertively-produced A-list feature with second-tier ambitions, lobbing sentiment and production values in lieu for any bona fide vigor or innovation.

At times, the faint whiff of Metro’s particular brand of embalming fluid is decidedly on display. George Well’s screenplay is infuriatingly strategic in its exhumation of another bygone era in film-making, this one populated by Depression-era gangsters and vexed, viper-tongued vixens. Designing Woman’s plot plays like an Andy Hardy movie for adults; fashion couturier, Marilla Brown (Bacall), the Sweet-Polly-Purebred of the piece, inveigled in a hapless marriage to sports writer, Mike Hagen (Peck) whose old flame, the sassy soubrette, Lori Shannon (Gray) is on the make. While we can fault Helen Rose and George Wells for their lack of inventiveness, it does not exactly spell the kiss of death for Designing Woman. And certainly, the cast, despite their lack of experience in the screwball genre, are experts of their acting craft nonetheless; their spellbinding proficiency, doing much to stave off shortcomings elsewhere. From a purely visual standpoint, Minnelli is at the top of his game. But like several other projects helmed by Metro’s prized director around this same time, Designing Woman appears to lack Minnelli’s total immersion in the material, at least enough to generate the necessary spark of elusive celluloid magic. At times, Minnelli is skating on the edge of a truly great entertainment, only to lose his creative verve or otherwise pull back from one of his more Minnellian light touches that might otherwise have luridly enveloped and enriched the story.  

In a not altogether humorous case of ‘opposites attract’, Marilla and Mike meet cute, poolside at the Beverly Hills Hotel while he is in California to cover a golf tournament. Well…not exactly. Actually, Mike has already met Marilla…although he does not recall the moment. You see, Mike’s keen eye wisely picked out the winner of the tournament, winning him a cool $1200 from the reporter’s betting pool. To celebrate, Mike bought everyone drinks, then promptly went on a bender. Awakening the next afternoon, hung over and certain he has failed to file his story with his office, a distraught Mike finds his way to the pool to lick his wounds. At his newspaper’s office, Mike’s caustic editor, Ned Hammerstein (Sam Levene) forewarns him that his continued badgering of crooked boxing promoter, Martin J. Daylor (Edward Platt) has placed both the paper and him in a perilous position. Indeed, Daylor’s veiled threats to do bodily harm are getting much too serious to ignore.

But Mike cannot seem to concentrate on anything. Now, Marilla approaches him, gingerly flirtatious. This leads to a horrendous misunderstanding; Mike, certain she is a prostitute he picked up the night before. In fact, Marilla empathized with her drunken Lochinvar from the outset, helping him to finish and file his story on time. Gratitude is one thing. Only Mike becomes sincerely smitten with Marilla, who further offers to return the $700 he paid her for helping him. Mike instead proposes they spend the money on each other, touring the California coastline. After a whirlwind eight-day courtship, the couple are wed. Too bad, the bride has been keeping secrets. She is not Mike’s ‘gal Friday’ but a strong-minded business woman and a maven of the fashion industry with prestige, money and far-reaching connections on the isle of Manhattan. Mike is unimpressed by all this. Indeed, he had no idea his wife was a power-broker in heels with the artistic sect and this, coupled with the snobbishness of Marilla’s hoity-toity friends, generates much friction, spilling over into the couple’s otherwise idyllic honeymoon.

Mike is a sportswriter - not a playboy. His friends hail from a colorful assortment of prize fighters, poker enthusiasts and otherwise working-class stiffs Marilla merely tolerates to keep the peace. Memorably, this détente does not last very long after Mike discovers his poker club coincides with Marilla’s scheduled Drama Society meeting. Marilla and Mike clash after he challenges the sexuality of her close friend, choreographer, Randy Owen. Afterward, the couple predictably patch things up. But not long afterward, Marilla grows suspicious of a photograph of Lori Shannon found in Mike’s possessions. He sheepishly allays Marilla’s fears with a lie. Lori was just a girl…actually more like a ‘friend’ - not a girlfriend. Marilla is not buying it.  After seeking Lori out for a little girl talk, Marilla is convinced there is more to her past relationship with Mike than meets the eye. Unaware of Mike’s marriage at first, Lori makes her glacial displeasure known when, agreeing to meet Mike for lunch, she casually upends a hot plate of ravioli into his lap.

After changing into a pair of short busboy pants, Mike returns with Marilla to her upscale penthouse. Only, the couple has walked into a surprise wedding shower thrown by Marilla’s friends. They completely shun Mike, waxing surreptitiously on topical fluff Mike knows nothing about and is therefore unable to contribute to the conversation.  Already embarrassed by his attire, Mike grows more contemptuous of this fair-weather flock.  Even the one guest who does befriend him, Broadway producer, Zachary Wilde (Tom Helmore) has ulterior motives – Marilla’s ex, still worshipping her from not so ‘afar’. The last guest departed, Mike makes his contempt for Marilla’s friends known. She tearfully defends her lifestyle, leaving Mike sheepishly ashamed. The couple reconcile and agree to work out their differences. To bury the hatchet, Marilla attends the Friday night fights with Mike, but becomes utterly squeamish and overwhelmed by its blood-soaked brutality.  

Days later, Mike arrives at Marilla's haute couture fashion show, only to discover Lori as its musical star and seated at his wife’s table. Awkwardly, the pair pretends never to have met; Mike, bowing out of the wrap party before things heat up. Marilla, however, is no fool, although her jealousy gets the better of her and leads to wild speculations about an ongoing affair between her husband and Lori. Meanwhile, returning to Marilla’s apartment, Mike is confronted by Johnny O (Chuck Connors) and several of Daylor’s beefy henchmen.  Marilla walking in on the altercation. So, Mike quickly makes up a story about his split lip, suggesting Daylor’s goons are actually his ‘friends’.  Bowing out with a veiled threat to return does not exactly get Mike off the hook with his wife. She confronts him about Lori. Mike admits to nothing but Marilla suggests the affair he had with Lori is still going on. Angrily, Mike denies this, before storming out of the apartment.  

Meanwhile Ned encourages Mike to go into seclusion while he wraps up his exposé on Daylor's boxing racket. As protection, Ned assigns punch-drunk pugilist, Maxie Stultz (Mickey Shaughnessy) to shadow Mike. To spare Marilla her concern, Mike lies yet again about leaving town to cover the Yankees. Instead, he and Maxie check into a seedy motel on the other side of town. Alas, although Marilla suspects her husband is not being truthful, her thoughts quickly segue to more suspicions about Lori.  To stave off her jealous nature and also quell her thirst to know, Mike telephones Marilla from his hotel, pretending to be in various cities.  Alas, Daylor is no fool.  Deducing Mike is somewhere in the city, he sends his thugs out to discover Mike’s whereabouts.  During one of their nightly phone calls, Marilla confronts Mike again about Lori. In reply, Mike suggests Marilla ought to ask the lady in question herself. Now, with Lori’s assistance, Mike concocts a simple enough, if highly implausible alibi for the photograph Marilla found at home. He hurries to Lori’s apartment to gain her complicity in this cover story. Alas, his timing could not be worse; Marilla, arriving only moments later to make her own inquiries.  

Lori hides Mike in her bedroom and embarks upon peacemaking with Marilla, who is momentarily charmed by Lori’s pet poodle. Too bad the dog returns a few moments later with one of Mike’s shoes in its mouth. Recognizing the footwear, Marilla barges into Lori’s bedroom and finds Mike. Wounded by his betrayal, she storms out of the apartment – sadder, but none the wiser. Meanwhile, Maxie, having discovered Mike having left the hotel without him, idiotically calls out his name in the hotel lobby where Daylor’s fair-weather stooge, Charlie Arneg (Jesse White) just happens to be. Upon locating Mike, Charlie informs him of Daylor’s grand plan to kidnap Marilla during the opening night of the musical in Boston.  Obviously concerned for her safety, Mike places an urgent call to the theater. Still stinging from what she erroneously has misperceived as Mike’s marital infidelity, Marilla absolutely refuses to entertain his call.  Maxie and Mike catch the next plane to Boston. Meanwhile, Lori comes clean about her pre-marital fling with Mike. They were an item – ‘were’ being the operative word. Mike loves Marilla; Lori is certain of it, and, is convincing enough to make Marilla ashamed of the way she has treated her husband and Lori ever since. After all, Mike never wanted to hurt Marilla by stirring her jealousy to such toxic levels.

Seeing the truth in this, Marilla hurries from the dressing room, longing to be reunited with her husband. Johnny O’s sudden appearance startles Marilla. Still assuming he is one of Mike’s friends, she accepts his offer to take her to Mike. Mercifully, Mike and Maxie arrive just as Johnny and Daylor’s henchmen are attempting to force Marilla into their getaway car. In the ensuing fistfight, Mike and Maxie gain the upper hand from an unlikely ally; Randy, leaping into action and effectively disarming the gangsters with his acrobatic footwork. Her kidnapping thwarted, a slightly disheveled but unbowed Mike confides the truth to his wife about his prior relationship with Lori. Marilla accepts his word. Lori was right. Mike is truly devoted only to her. Several months later, Zachary becomes engaged to Lori. In the interim, Marilla and Mike have both softened somewhat; each, accepting the other’s circle of friends. With Daylor arrested, Mike is free to enjoy his marriage without any fear of reprisals. The couple agrees to set aside their differences once and for all and live happily ever after…perhaps.

Designing Woman is a relatively tame, if sophisticated affair. There is never any real doubt about Mike’s fidelity to Marilla or even the inference this one will end any other way except blissfully for the momentarily feuding couple. Arguably, it is one of the flaws in MGM’s fifties output that they generally chose to ‘play it safe’. Despite the ousting of L.B. Mayer, the pugnacious mogul’s old-time bill of fare for opulent romantic fantasies endured well beyond its natural expiration date and, questionably, to the studio’s ever-lasting detriment. Designing Woman can be charming – in spots. And irrefutably, it looks and plays the part of the gussied-up Clydesdale in Metro’s three-ring circus dog and pony show; Preston Ames’ luscious mid-fifties sets, capped off by uber-chichi trappings, like the Modigliani hanging over Marilla’s faux marble fireplace; a Park Avenue spread fit for a queen…or at least, a socially affluent mannequin who fancies herself as much - slinky black jerseys and stylish straight skirts optional. Everything about Designing Woman is perfection, and that is both its’ allure and its’ failing.

Everyone from Mike’s buddies to the man of the house looks as though they have just stepped out of a GQ spread. The thugs are as polished as the up-towners, too slick for their own good and not to be believed. The theatrical milieu in Designing Woman affords Minnelli the opportunity to supplement the picture’s lag in razor-wit and one-liner barbs with some truly eye-popping eye-candy; the gauche and the glamorous, sharing equal screen time in a perfect counterbalance, as only Minnelli’s keen eye for visual finesse could conceive.  But the overall impact is nevertheless tainted instead of enhanced by these augmentations. Nearly 70 years removed from its debut, the concrete world depicted in Designing Woman, moderately believable then to many in the audience as a glimpse into the lives of a select few living the high-hooey in Manhattan’s moneyed playgrounds, today, is as foreign a landscape as anything depicted in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey; the creakiness in its plot, always more quaint than cutting edge, now just a wrinkle in time at the end of Hollywood’s golden era, when art was not the mimic of life, but a signifier to its highly manufactured alternate, meant to provide undiluted escapism for the masses.  

Designing Woman arrives on Blu-ray via the Warner Archive (WAC) in a simply gorgeous-looking 1080p remaster, sure to impress. A lot of Metro’s mid-fifties ‘scope’ product has suffered from improper storage, color fading and other anomalies exacerbated by the natural aging process. But Designing Woman appears to have somehow, miraculously, escaped all of that; its steadfast hues, showing off Robert Alton’s sumptuous cinematography to its very best advantage. Ostensibly, this is one of the finest-looking Cinemascope movies yet to arrive in hi-def and truly, one for the top shelve of any die-hard collector seeking to further complete his/her filmography of the works of Peck, Bacall and Minnelli. Contrast is superb and film grain has been properly maintained. The image is silky smooth and very consistent throughout, with transitional dissolves and fades (usually a problem with ‘scope’ movies) effortlessly on display herein. The only real drawback, as far as I can tell, is the image lacks razor-sharp crispness. But this is due to the shortcomings of Bausch & Lomb’s early CinemaScope lenses, with variations of the infamous ‘Cinemascope mumps’ (horizontal stretching) cropping up from time to time in close-ups. There is also a single moment where the image falls apart, approximately an hour into the movie, a dupe likely substituted for a damaged original camera negative. It’s so brief, it’s hardly worth mentioning, except to point out it exists within this otherwise flawless presentation.

For decades rumors have abounded Designing Woman was originally recorded in 4-track stereo. While it is certainly true Fox ‘scope’ releases from this same vintage uniformly sported directionalized stereo, MGM was far more circumspect about when and where to go the ‘full on’ treatment. Indeed, Metro usually reserved stereo for their ‘scope’ musicals or big n’ splashy epics like Raintree County (1956) and Ben-Hur (1959). To set the record straight, Designing Woman was never recorded in 4-track stereo. On this Blu-ra outing, WAC has seen fit to preserve the original magnetic master in 2.0 mono. It sounds wonderful. WAC has also included a featurette on Helen Rose, an exclusive produced for their original DVD release in 2003; also, the picture’s original theatrical trailer in HD! Bottom line: Designing Woman is not exactly a bona fide classic, despite Metro’s top-tier treatment. Glamour alone never sells a movie – nor should it. Peck, Bacall and Grey give this one their all and Minnelli really puts on the dog…in this case, a little more like applying lipstick to the proverbial hog. Not quite a clunker, but hardly better than an oink! Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

1