Design For Living (1964)

An interior designer (Jill Bennett) has a complicated relationship with the two men in her life. She lives with a painter (John Wood) but she had a previous relationship with his best friend, a playwright (Daniel Massey). She loves both men, they both love her and they love each other. Based on the play by Noel Coward and directed by Joan Kemp Welch. If done right, this can be a witty and charming play. If done badly ..... ouch! As the girl in the menage a trois, Jill Bennett is good and vital and sexy enough that you can see why she is attractive to men. Alas, the male actors don't measure up. Are there two actors more sexless than Massey (who would go on to play Noel Coward in 1968's STAR!) and Wood? They play their roles as petulant homosexuals but even then in name only as one can't image them having sex either! Their performances are all surface, tossing off witticisms without wit and they just come across as bitchy and shallow. In retrospect, Noel Coward seemed to understand why this was one of his least revived plays. His characters are essentially self centered and superficial. With David Pearson.