Easy Living

Another in the long line of extremely pleasurable comedies starring Jean Arthur--no one can make fluttery bewilderment more enchanting, and there's plenty to be bewildered about in this heavenly screwball farce. Arthur is poor, honest, hardworking Mary Smith, whose life is changed when a sable coat thrown out of a window lands on her head. She tries to return it, but the man who threw it, rich banker J.P. Ball (Edward Arnold), in a fit of pique at his wife's extravagance, insists she keep it, and even buys her a matching hat in a nearby store. The store's employees, assuming she's a fancy kept woman (the idea!) spread the word around town, and soon everyone in sight wants to be her best pal, not least of all Arnold's son (Ray Milland), who is trying to make his way in the world without his father's backing. Although scenes such as Arthur's dismissal from her job (for "ethical violations") have become dated (without losing their humor), the portrait of an entire city eagerly sucking up to a (supposed) rich man's consort in hopes something will rub off on them couldn't be more timely. The movie has some of the best choreographed pratfalls in the genre, not least of all in the celebrated Automat sequence, when the windows accidentally open and everyone scrambles for the free food. (It's slapstick Marxism). And Arthur's pleased yet skeptical reaction to the enormous hotel suite she's offered (it looks like it belongs in the Emerald City of Oz) is just right; she looks at the lily-shaped tub, which is crowned by a statue of a shrugging goddess, and comments, "Look at her standing there with her arms sticking out; I guess she doesn't know either.") The only wrong note (for me), is the performance of Luis Alberini as the hotel owner; his brand of dialect humor gets tiresome--I'd just as soon it was left in the thirties for good.

Unlikely to ever happen in the 21st century but if History is your game, it's plausible on the 1930s. The premise is simple in that a series of mishaps all fall into the lap of an innocent woman. A MUST if you're a Jean Arthur fan...it takes someone of her comedic skill to pull it off. The resulting chaos is again, pure Preston Sturges.

According to a recent biography of Jean Arthur, Easy Living only got a so-so reception from the movie-going public of 1937. Today it is rightly regarded as a screwball comedy classic from the era that invented and defined that genre. The miracle was that it got made at all.

Jean Arthur was obligated to Columbia Pictures and the dictatorial Harry Cohn and she was allowed to make outside films. But Cohn determined when and where. So Easy Living may have been a great fit for her, but it didn't fit into his plans. Jean had to go to court before the film was made and a settlement was reached.

Easy Living also gave an outlet for some unknown comic talents of Edward Arnold who usually played some serious villains in films. Arnold is a Wall Street investment tycoon whose every bit of noise be it wisdom or flatulence is recorded for posterity. One day in fit of pique against his spendthrift wife Mary Nash and wastrel son Ray Milland, Arnold throws a most expensive mink coat from out the townhouse window and on to a passing working woman in Jean Arthur. He tells her to keep the thing and count her good fortune. But folks are in the habit of recording Arnold's every move, including one bestowing an expensive gift on a mystery woman.

That starts about 90 minutes of non-stop hilarity in which the very foundations of our financial institutions are rocked due ultimately everyone misconstruing a relationship between Arnold and Arthur. One does get going however with Arthur and Milland when she finds him working at an automat because Arnold's dared him to get a job. That ends in an incredible burst of hilarity, you think Animal House had a great food fight, check the one in Easy Living out.

Directed by Mitchell Leisen and written by Preston Sturges, Easy Living has all the earmarks of a Preston Sturges directed movie, in fact Sturges's stock company was somewhat assembled here if you look down the supporting players. My favorite is Luis Alberni whose white elephant of a hotel finally gets going due to some accidental rumors.

We're the richer for Easy Living being made even if Jean Arthur had to take Harry Cohn to court to do it.

This is a classic, with one of the great slapstick scenes of all time (in an automat) and wonderful innuendo and great timing throughout the film. Jean Arthur is a splendid comedienne, just lighting up the screen with a wry innocence, and Ray Milland is perfectly cast as someone a little debonair, a little too bourgeois, but ultimately quite charming. Finally, Edward Arnold is a lot of fun to watch as he chews up the scenery. As a long time fan of Preston Sturges who was quite happy to see "Miracle at Morgan Creek" finally released on DVD, I have to say, it is A CRIME that this little gem isn't available on DVD, just ridiculous.

One of the best film moments of the 1930s occurs just after the beginning of the film when wealthy J. B. Ball, exasperated by his spoiled family's spending habits, tosses the wife's new sable coat from a window high in their 5th Avenue mansion. As if with a mind set on its own destiny, the falling coat spreads out on the air and lands like an enchanted parachute on the head of the Mary Smith, the working girl who will be our main character (Jean Arthur), and who is riding on the upper deck of a double-decker bus. What is a double-decker doing in New York City? No one asks; the coat just does its magic and the enchanted plot is underway. Best of all, screenwriter Sturges balances the magic and sentimentality with his usual crisp, witty, no-nonsense approach to dialogue and character. This "yin / yang" harmony is similar to what he achieved in directing "Sullivan's Travels."