The Easiest Way

Constance Bennett is a woman who gets a sugar daddy in "The Easiest Way," also starring Adolphe Menjou, Robert Montgomery, Anita Page, and Clark Gable. Made in 1931, it's directed by Jack Conway, and it's very well done.

Bennett plays Laura, who lives in a crowded tenement with her large family, which includes her father who manages not to work. She gets an opportunity to model for an advertising agency. While there, she catches the eye of the boss (Menjou) who offers her a life of luxury. She takes it. Her mother shuns her, and her brother-in-law, Clark Gable, has no use for her. While she and Menjou are in Colorado, she meets a reporter, Robert Montgomery, and they fall in love. She promises to be faithful to him while he's in South America for three months. But it's pretty hard to make it on her own.

This is an interesting film. Because the actors were getting used to sound, the rhythm is occasionally off, i.e., there are sometimes awkward pauses between lines. Everyone's acting is good, with the exception of Marjorie Rambeau, who has a very melodramatic role and does the tremulous voice thing in her big monologue. Rambeau, however, had been a Broadway star, where her theatrics were more appropriate, and it took actors time to learn the art of film acting. She was a fantastic actress, and I particularly remember her as Joan Crawford's mother in "Torch Song." Constance Bennett, as usual, was very beautiful. She is excellent in the part of a torn, vulnerable woman. Gable is a tough guy sans mustache. He hadn't yet developed his screen persona, but the gorgeous smile was there. Robert Montgomery is wonderful as a young reporter.

There was a neat shot where the camera travels up a building, zeroes in on a window, and then zooms in. It was dizzying and exciting, and it's the kind of detail that makes "The Easiest Way" a good watch. There are real outdoor scenes, too, no painted backdrops, and opulent sets. If they weren't opulent, they were realistic, for instance, the crummy apartment where Laura's family lives.

There was another ending to this film that the Hays office vetoed. Apparently it was shown in some theaters but is no longer available. I'm a sap, so I liked the ending that's in the movie.

Wonderful story ruined by Hays Office has fabulous Constance Bennett escaping her New York slum upbringing by becoming a model and mistress to Adolphe Menjou. All is well until she runs into reporter Robert Montgomery in Colorado Springs (the Wild West in 1931). He's off to South America and asks Bennett to be good and wait for him. Well that lasts about a month. She runs out of money and goes back to Menjou. Better than it sounds until the hack ending. Solid performances by the stars, especially Bennett, and ably supported by Anita Page, Marjorie Rambeau, Clark Gable (his first MGM film), J. Farrell MacDonald, Clara Blandick, Jack Hanlon (as the sullen brother), and Hedda Hopper. The opening tenement scene is just wonderful. Gable is dynamic is his first big part. Rambeau is always terrific. Page is quite good in a supporting role. Menjou is slimy, but Constance Bennett is front and center and mesmerizing. She was a major star of her time--too bad she's mostly forgotten now.

Constance Bennett stars as a lower class girl who takes the easy way. That is, she becomes a kept women. We see her in beautiful gown, in jewels, in furs. Adolph Menjou is footing the bill.

Then she meets newspaperman Robert Montgomery and wants to give it all up for true love. I won't reveal the ending. But it's not an especially happy one, and three cheers to Hollywood for not selling out.

A few comments on the perfumers: . Robert Montgomery is not someone I can imagine anyone's throwing over even a modest income for.

. Clark Gable has a fairly small role here. He plays, with of course no mustache, Bennett's proper working class and disapproving brother-in-law.

. Bennett is chic as she always is. But she isn't photographed in a faltering manner. Her profile is rather flat. She appears to have an overbite and her false eyelashes seem apparent. Maybe the director of photography and she did not get on well.

. The brilliant Marjorie Rameau turns in the earliest of her fine performances that I have seen. She plays another kept woman. When Bennett is down on her luck and asks for a loan, she sends her packing. But when her daddy dies, she comes to Bennett for money and is given it.

Her performance is in a different realm from that of any of the other players in this movie.

Bennett is a strangely forgotten star of early movies. Rambeau is a sadly underrated actress, whose career spanned several decades.

A beautiful young model finds THE EASIEST WAY to support her needy family is to become a rich man's mistress -- until she falls in love with an energetic reporter.

This little film is strictly soap opera, but it's well presented and makes a pleasant diversion. The production values are good, especially in the opening sequence which reveals the inside of a tenement flat, and causes the viewer to appreciate the trouble MGM expended on even its small pictures.

Beautiful Constance Bennett is very convincing as a woman who frankly admits her moral standing -- until true love complicates everything. Urbane Adolphe Menjou, as the rich businessman who controls Bennett, is slightly more sympathetic than usual in a role he could probably have played in his sleep. And Robert Montgomery gives his patented friendly portrayal as the steadfast fellow who earnestly loves Bennett -- until he is told the truth of her situation.

A fine supporting cast helps the proceedings: tough-talking Marjorie Rambeau as an aging model out to squeeze every penny possible from the male animal; lazy J. Farrell MacDonald & careworn Clara Blandick as Bennett's poor parents; blonde Anita Page as Bennett's lively younger sister; and sturdy Clark Gable, as Page's laundryman boyfriend, who would eventually supplant Montgomery as MGM's favorite heartthrob.

Movie mavens will recognize jovial Dell Henderson and stately Hedda Hopper, both uncredited as Bennett's Colorado hosts.

As sound and dialog came to films the Broadway stage became more and more a source for movie properties even if they had to go back considerable ways for material. The Easiest Way was a play written by James Walter and produced by that eminent showman David Belasco first in 1909. It was most typical of the Edwardian era morality works that Belasco so favored.

It could never be done today, in fact it was barely acceptable in 1931 for its incredibly anti-feminist stand. According to the character played by Marjorie Rambeau men rule, make said rules, and women just have to deal with it. Submit cheerfully to being wives and mothers with some occasional outside work if you can fit it in.

Constance Bennett with her small job in a department store doesn't think this is all that's for her. She help supports her parents J. Farrell MacDonald and Clara Blandick and a couple of small brothers. Sister Anita Page is getting ready to marry honest laundry man Clark Gable who has some most chauvinistic views about women, but also about the value of honesty and hard work.

So when advertising executive Adolphe Menjou suggest to Bennett that they shack up, she's ready to take The Easiest Way and go for a life of luxury. That is until she meets newspaperman Robert Montgomery who's ready to marry her once he gets back from a long assignment in Argentina.

Without going into details Bennett makes a holy hash of her life and those tried and true standards of the time for women serve as a lesson to her and all in the audience. Be good wives and mothers and don't take The Easiest Way to prosperity.

The original play only had six characters and so it was expanded considerably at MGM and updated to Depression times where such lessons were not completely appreciated. Still this cast did manage to put it over.

The Easiest Way was the first film at MGM for Clark Gable who was billed eighth down in the cast. By the end of the decade Gable was acknowledged King of Hollywood before Elvis was known as the King. Nearly all the players billed above him would be below him in cast lists in the future. His appeal on the screen was immediately discernible and in the end of this film, he's given a bit of humanity and shown as not the blue nose stinker you might originally have thought him to be.

The Easiest Way is way old fashioned for today, I doubt too many stock companies do the original play today. Still some will find it a curiosity and Gable is always good to watch.