Easy Living

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.

Easy Living ranks among the funniest screwball comedies of all time. It is Preston Sturges at his best with manic energies and surprising twists galore. This delightfully original comedy of misunderstandings pays homage to Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Sheridan with a touch of P.G. Wodehouse thrown in for good measure. All of the characters, even the peripheral ones, are richly rendered with motivations we can instantly understand and empathize with. The principals -- Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold, and Ray Milland -- are perfectly cast and have a field day with their roles. Arthur in particular is adorable as, bewildered but good hearted, she deals with an inexplicable turn of events that throws her life upside down. Just as exquisitely acted are the supporting roles of legendary character actors like Luis Alberni and Franklin Pangborn. The net result is an uproarious film that makes you laugh all over again when you think of it after the fact.

Although EASY LIVING makes no claim to realism it does somehow capture the flavor of New York in the thirties.

Directed by Mitchell Leisen from a screenplay by Preston Sturges it has all the hallmarks of Leisen's style, the gleaming, high style sets, the magnificent cathedral ceilinged apartments and also, unfortunately the tendency to allow scenes to run on just a little too long. The slapstick scene in the automat is a prime example, just a few pratfalls too many. If Sturges directed as well as written the film might not have been as sumptuous looking bit I think it would have been tighter.

Minor details however, the film is a delight, especially Jean Arthur and a very capable supporting cast giving it their professional all.

Highly recommended.

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.

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."