Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

jarrodmcdonald-1 Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall have been hired by MGM for this energetic romantic comedy. Director Vincente Minnelli's attention to detail gives the film a strong visual quality, and the fight in the alley is choreographed nicely and should be considered a comic masterpiece. However, I found the audio to be inferior. It seems as if many scenes had been redubbed, and it gave the film an unintentional-- or perhaps intentional?-- surreal quality. But the story is wonderful, and so are the performances (from the entire cast). It is about these people from different backgrounds, and the mishaps that occur when such worlds collide.

secondtake Designing Woman (1957)I continue to disappoint my own optimism about movies from this period--that decade between the real end of the Old Hollywood and the real start of the New. (Let's say the nether zone of 1956 to 1965). But seeing a movie like "Designing Woman" is a chance to see what exactly these movie makers were up to. After all, the actors, directors, photographers, and writers were the same, almost to the letter, as ten years earlier. They were not idiots or failures in any sense. So...What has happened here to my eye has to do with style, an intentional shift to a very glossy, very false, very stylized kind of late 1950s mise-en-scene. Sometimes (in other movies) this rises above. Hitchcock's late 50s films come to mind. And exceptions for particular subsets of the audience exist (and blossom) like the Doris Day films and other period comedies. Some dramas that really still have resonance like "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "Charade" also show the slick detachment of the movie machinery working out well, though with affectations, too.So, here's director Vincente Minnelli, who directed the remarkable 1951 romantic critique of the end of Old Hollywood, "The Bad and the Beautiful." And here are the two towering leads. Lauren Bacall is of course a legend linked first of Bogart, and to hard core Old Hollywood dramas. And Gregory Peck is better known for more serious movies like "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Cape Fear." Even the great cinematographer John Alton has a resume a mile long. The writer, I admit, is less known, and the story here is thin, for sure, but he won an academy award for it, which shows how time changes perceptions. But, in all, the larger artistic intentions of the writer and director really bring a cool, dry dullness. It's a revelation to see it for what it is.It's almost like the director and producer know this isn't going to be a serious movie no matter what, that it can't be. Even the gruesome boxing match turns into a lighthearted repartee, and the glitzy high society stuff is generic and oddly lifeless (Billy Wilder does this material better, for example). And be warned, the format is itself uninvolving, with key parts switching to a simple voice-over, explaining what was happening, but not in a moody film noir way, just information.Is it worthless? Of course not. The scenes are often very complicated visually, with a huge array of extras. The filming really is gorgeous, though more static than it needs to be. There is dancing shoehorned into the plot (though both dancers are fairly dull as people, try as they do). There is a classic kind of clash of cultures that is meant to be the set-up for all the gags, Bacall the rich pampered woman of culture and Peck the working class sportswriter. Ugh, so the timing is off, the jokes flat, and the progress utterly slow. All these high production values are disposable. I hate the fact that I love all these people and thought the movie a dud. See for yourself.

PudgyPandaMan I mainly checked this out due to the fact that it WON the Oscar for best writing, story and screen play. Boy, 1958 must have been a very slow year. The only great thing I can say is that the costumes and gowns were beautiful - but it didn't even get nominated for that.I'm a big fan of Gregory Peck, but he was horribly miscast here. He does best when playing a sincere man with a noble cause. I don't know how or why he agreed to do this film. Laurne Bacall is very irritating in her role. Her "hair flips" get to be quite distracting. Delores Gray didn't appeal to me either - her features are much too equine to be attractive.I know this is supposed to be an attempt at comedy, but the whole fight scene where the choreographer kicks all the gangster guys to oblivion is just ridiculous.The only highlights for me were seeing Chuck Connor ("Rifleman") in a small role as a gangster, Edward Platt (Chief from "Get Smart") as the head gangster, and Mickey Shaugnessy as the punch-drunk idiot boxer who sleeps with his eyes open. It's interesting that they originally had cast James Stewart and Grace Kelly in the leads, but Stewart backed out after Kelly became engaged to Prince Ranier of Monaco. Maybe there would have been a better comedy portrayal had they been in it.I expected much more from an Oscar winner.

blanche-2 Lauren Bacall is a "Designing Woman" in this vibrant, sophisticated 1957 comedy directed by Vincent Minnelli and starring Gregory Peck, Delores Gray, Sam Levene, Tom Helmore, Mickey Shaughnessy, Jesse White and Chuck Connors. Suggested by costume designer Helen Rose, this story of a designer marrying a sportswriter is a loose remake of "Woman of the Year" - two people meet, fall in love, marry hastily, and then discover that they're from different worlds. And Mike Hagen (Peck) comes with baggage - an ex-girlfriend (Delores Gray) who is starring in the show Mirella (Bacall) is doing the costumes for, plus he has mobsters after him because of a series of stories he's writing.It's a recipe for good fun, some beautiful '50s fashions and most of all, excellent acting by the entire cast. Bacall and Peck work beautifully together, both displaying wonderful comic timing, the highlight being the ravioli scene. Mickey Shaughnessy is hilarious as Max, the punch-drunk fighter, and Delores Gray is sexy and sings up a storm as performer Laurie Shannon. Minnelli keeps the pace moving and gives us a good taste of putting on a Broadway show and some of the personalities involved.Someone on the board mentioned that the Peck and Bacall looked as though they were having fun. Hopefully, that's true. This was made shortly before Humphrey Bogart's death - the film was actually released about 5 months after he died - and it's a tribute to Bacall's professionalism that she was able to pull off a comedy under such circumstances. I don't think her personal life could have been much fun at all.