The Easiest Way

The shopgirl-turned-clotheshorse concept was a staple of 1920's a 30's films, with Joan Crawford wringing quite a bit of success out of the formula. Here, Bennett gives it a go in a story that was based on a 1909 stage play. She portrays the eldest of five children living with their parents in a squalid, cramped New York tenement. The father resists working while the mother barely manages to wrangle the kids and put supper on the table. Bennett toils behind the tie counter at a department store until one day she gets the opportunity to pose as a model for advertising artists. She doesn't stop with this modest success and proceeds to hook up with the boss (Menjou), who fixes her up with a fancy apartment and all the jewels and furs she can handle. During this, she aids her family as well, though a few of them reject her for the way she earns her keep. On an extended visit to Colorado, she happens upon handsome young writer Montgomery and quickly falls for him. She decides to give up her lavish "kept" lifestyle and return to work while he is away on assignment, knowing he will be back for her to marry him. But can she take that step backwards? Bennett, one of the highest paid and most popular stars of the era presents an appealing and attractive persona (check out that waist!) She knows that what she's doing is "wrong", yet circumstances seem to prevent her from doing otherwise unless she wants to exist in poverty. Menjou is assured and manipulative in his role. Montgomery is quite fresh and likable for the better part of his screen time. Page appears to great advantage as Bennett's far earthier sister who winds up wed to Gable in one of his very earliest roles. He's handsome though his character is a little self-righteous. Rambeau makes an impression as one of Bennett's sidekicks in the modeling biz who also reaches for the top in the mistress game. Virtually all of the cast members give vivid performances. The opening sequences in the rundown apartment are quite fascinating in their snappy dialogue and depiction of the hard times. Today's audiences will be able to see through the predictable plotting, but the film still holds interest. Though the Hays Office is sometimes blamed for tampering with the material, the 1917 silent version had at least as downbeat an ending as this one does. In fact, if the story were to end any other way than it does, there'd be very little point to it all!

"This life isn't a romance for girls like us. It's a game with the men holding all the trumps. They like to look upon us as some animal they're proud to own."

This is a pre-Code film, but it's a mixed bag relative to moralistic messaging, and that was a little frustrating. Its premise is born out of the Depression, and it being tough for working families to make ends meet. In a common theme from the era, a sudden event promises a change in fortune: the meeting of a rich man. It comes at a cost, however, and "the easiest way" out of one's problems is soon shown to be the hard way.

We initially meet a large family in an early morning scene that was sharp and full of life. Kids of all ages sharing beds are being awakened by their mother and sent on errands or called to get their breakfast. The father announces he is tired of the physical strain of working as a longshoreman and wants to rely on his kids, so he would like his adolescent son to drop out of school so that he can get a job at a construction site catching red-hot rivets thrown by workers in a pail. Yikes. We're not in 2023 here, we're in 1931 - although in light of Iowa and other state legislatures moving forward with loosening child labor laws with little ability to hold businesses accountable in the event of injury or death, hey, perhaps we're also looking at the future here! But I digress. One of his adult daughters (Anita Page) is soon to marry a hard-working blue-collar guy (Clark Gable). The other (Constance Bennett) is a sensible saleswoman, but after being discovered as a modelling prospect, becomes the lover of the top boss (Adolphe Menjou). Her sugar daddy allows her to live a life of luxury and support her family, but the immorality of the relationship (as seen in the eyes of the era) causes her to be ostracized by her mother and brother-in-law, and she's conflicted when she meets someone she truly loves (Robert Montgomery).

It's a fantastic cast with all five of those actors, and these were early roles for Montgomery and Gable, which is a bonus. Director Jack Conway keeps things moving along with great pace as well, and occasionally there are some fine shots, such as the one of Bennett and Montgomery talking at a mountain lake, their backs turned to the camera and the reflection of the trees in the water in the background. We never really see any passion between Bennett and Menjou so it's decidedly tame for a pre-Code film, and that's almost certainly due to censors taking exception to Bennett's life being shown as too alluring before eventually getting to its message and hacking it up at a local level, as Mark Viera describes in Forbidden Hollywood. The film also vacillates melodramatically as it plays out. I liked that part of this showed the position Bennett's character was in, between a rock and a hard place, with her friend saying that the men "held all the trumps," but wish it had taken more of a stand on this hypocrisy.

And that's where most of my discontent came from, the judgment of Bennett's character, while there was absolutely none of this for Menjou's. The most visible form of this comes from Clark Gable's character, who clearly represents the film's moral compass, given the somewhat nauseating forgiveness scene, complete with Christmas trappings, at the end. Even Bennett herself feels she is wrong to be living with a man who is "not the marrying kind," and comes off as more miserable than some of the other strong pre-Code characters and the leading ladies who played them. At least she's not condemned to death so this doesn't feel completely like a post-Code film, but it's close.

"The Easiest Way" is an example of how Hollywood could deal with thorny subjects before the arrival of the Hays Code. We are presented with a situation in which a young, poor, but attractive young woman, could go up in the world using her natural charms in a realistic way. That was going to change in a few more years, as the Code would not let themes such as this one be dealt with the frankness prior to its arrival.

The film, directed by Jack Conway, is curiosity piece by today's standards. The original work was made for the stage where there was an open mind about risky situations. We are presented with a poor family at the beginning of the story living in a crowded tenement. Laura, the beautiful young girl has no future of getting a rich man that will take her away from the poverty she is living. When a rich man enters her life, she sees the opportunity to escape her humble origins.

The film deals in a realistic way with the subject of the illicit affair between Laura and Bill Brockton. When she falls for young Jack Madison, she believes that she must abandon the man that provides her comfort and easy life, until she finds herself penniless and must face with the fact that she has to go back to Bill, but loses Jack in the process. At the end, we watch her spying outside her married sister's suburban house which is the epitome of happiness.

Constance Bennett makes an interesting Laura, but this is not her best role in the movies. Robert Montgomery is not seen enough in the film. Adolph Menjou makes a great Bill Brockton, the rich man who loves Laura in spite of the fact he knows Laura doesn't care for him. Clark Gable made a good impression as the brother-in-law critical to Laura. Marjorie Rambeau, Anita Page and Hedda Haper appear in minor roles.

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.

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.