Designing Woman (1957) YTS - Download Yify Movie

Reviewed by CinemaSerf 7 / 10

After a whistle stop romance, sports journalist “Mike”

After a whistle stop romance, sports journalist “Mike” (Gregory Peck) marries high fashion designer “Marilla” (Lauren Bacall) but when they get back to his tiny bachelor flat in New York they realise that now the dust has settled, they don’t really know too much about each other. He wants to just settle back down to his own life, and that includes “Lori” (Dolores Gray) who has found out, third hand, about the marriage and isn’t best pleased. Thing is, the new wife doesn’t know anything about her, either, and after an encounter between the three finds her antennae are up and well and truly pointing (albeit in the wrong direction!). Meantime, “Mike” has another, more immediate, problem. He has been writing about bribery and corruption amongst the boxing fraternity and that’s irked the local mafiosi who have put a price on his head. When his editor assigns him a bodyguard and holes him up in a grotty hotel while they finesse the coup de grâce of his story, she gets even more suspicious. Whom is more dangerous - the mob or the wife? It’s quite good fun this with Bacall and Gray making mincemeat of their hapless “Mike”. Peck also seems in on the gag and is a willing participant as things turn to some Harold Lloyd style alley-way fisticuffs. There’s some wit from the script and even if some of her frocks are truly ghastly, even by empresses new clothes standards, Bacall is at the top of her game.

Reviewed by HillstreetBunz 6 / 10

Stylish comedy that has timed-out culturally

I was born in 64 and grew up watching all those great (and not so great) old movies from the 30s onwards on TV. My love of cinema continued and I've been an avid moviegoer ever since. I am sad that as most of these movies are no longer shown on TV, audiences are not exposed to them and therefore don't see their value. Many young people couldn't contemplate watching a B&W movie under any circumstances. Amongst my own world I often encourage them to watch a rare appearance of an old 'classic' in the streaming schedules. That said, I watched this film today (2023) and whilst I recognised it as a film I enjoyed 40 years ago, its polite sexism undermines any enjoyment today. It makes the leading man seem narrow and shows a fragile ego (and if you can do that to Peck, there's no hope for any other chap). And it makes the leading lady seem silly and childish (which because Bacall could never be that, makes her character a bit unbelievable). It occurs to me that this is a problem with many American movies of the 50s, and that it strangely doesn't apply to the output of the 30s and 40s. I suspect its because of the post war desire to put women back in their place (the home etc). These mainstream 50s movies despite their amazing design and production values and the charismatic stars of the day, really are becoming anachronistic in ways that 'suspension of disbelief' cant overcome (at least not at this distance). I recently watched Pillow Talk, the Doris Day/Rock Hudson vehicle that is probably the best example of this genre. I must say it stands up well. I think the script and the direction there are pacier and funnier, and maybe precisely because it is the most extreme example of this genre (virginal almost 40 years old Doris and closeted Gay icon Rock) it stands outside it now, we enjoy the game knowingly. The same can't work here, and doesn't. Pity, there are still things to enjoy, but it has too many cringe inducing cliches even for a sixty year old white male like me, so god knows what the young would say, with their intolerance of other spheres etc.

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Designing Woman

1957

Action / Comedy / Romance

Designing Woman

1957

Action / Comedy / Romance

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After a whistle stop romance, sports journalist “Mike”

Stylish comedy that has timed-out culturally

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