"Easy Living" *** 1\2 (out of ****)
There is no way for me to get around saying this. "Easy Living" represents the kind of movies I love most. Yes, I talk a great deal about Ingmar Bergman, Francois Truffaut, Andrei Tarkovsky, Claude Chabrol, all great filmmakers no doubt. All men who changed cinema in one way or other. They deserved to be appreciated and remembered by a younger generation of film fans. But, the movies which I honestly enjoy watching the most are Hollywood films made from the 1930s - 1940s.
"Easy Living" has a storyline a lot of people would consider kind of strange. You might even say the storyline is weak and predictable. Though to say such things isn't fair. "Easy Living" wants to be wacky and goofy. It is charming. It has a spirit we no longer see in movies today. I'm actually sentimental about these kind of movies because they take me back to my childhood.
The movie was directed by Mitchell Leisen. In my opinion not a great director though his name is associated with some good movies. He directed "Golden Earrings" with Marlene Dietrich and Ray Milland and also with Dietrich, another charming comedy "The Lady Is Willing" (which I've reviewed on here) as well as "Hands Across the Table" and "Midnight", which was written by Billy Wilder. On "Easy Living" Leisen is working with a script by another great comedy writer, Mr. Preston Struges.
On that once in a blue moon when film fans think of Sturges, most remember him as a writer and director (in my opinion, one of the best). But before Sturges started directing comedy classics like "The Palm Beach Story", "Hail the Conquering Hero" and his directorial debut, "The Great McGinty", Sturges started off strictly as a writer. Most of the time he would go uncredited for his work. "Easy Living" (1937) is one of his early, screen credit works. He also wrote "The Good Fairy", directed by William Wyler.
I don't want to discuss too much about Sturges in this review, I want to save all of my useless information on him for when I review a movie he directed as well, but "Easy Living" is a good example of what makes Preston Sturges so special in my opinion.
As a amateur filmmaker myself, heavy emphasis on amateur, I always tried to make the kind of movies which I enjoy watching. As much as I love the work of more serious filmmakers, such as Bergman, Fellini and Kurosawa, I never think of them when making a movie. I never ask myself, what would Bergman do? I don't have that kind of mind. I would not be able to make a "Seventh Seal", "Persona" or "Wild Strawberries" on my own. Sure now after seeing his work I could think of something similar but without him such ideas would never occur to me. Plus I'm far more interested in comedy. So I always try to make films in the style of Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch and Preston Sturges. Sturges is special to me because he does what I wish I could do.
As a movie lover I appreciate a wide variety of films. This goes for comedy too. I love verbal humor, the wise-crack smart alec remarks of a Robert Benchley, Don Rickles, Rodney Dangerfield, Bob Hope, Groucho and Woody Allen but I equally love slapstick humor and the work of Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and Harold Lloyd. I even made a movie once dedicated to Laurel & Hardy and Lloyd. The problem I have however is wanting my movies to be all things at once. I always want to combine verbal humor and slapstick together. For me it is difficult to come up with a story where I can easily blend the two. So in the end I sacrifice the story for a joke. Which I'm in no way above doing. In fact, many times, I firmly believe in that. But it doesn't always work. That's where Sturges comes in.
I suspect Sturges and I are similar in one way. I think he too appreciates a wise-crack just as much as a pratfall. The difference is, he could could combine the two in a way I've yet to see anyone duplicate. There is a lot of smart dialogue in Sturges' movies but he also allows for plenty of slapstick. Watch "Unfaithfully Yours", perhaps my favorite of his films, Rex Harrison is doing a lot of physical comedy in that movie. The sequence where he is conducting the orchestra while planning how to murder his wife is vintage Sturges. Few writer/directors are able to so effortlessly combine these two styles.
"Easy Living", though as I have mentioned, is not directed by Sturges, is still very typical of his work. In fact, I'm willing to bet Sturges had a very strong hand in the directing. Watch some of Sturges' directing efforts first then watch this one. Tell me if you notice a difference. It is very slight. That's why I don't think Leisen was a great director. I think he was a studio director who could be pushed around. Unlike Sturges, Leisen doesn't allow enough emphasis on some of the slapstick. I could imagine Sturges having his camera linger longer on events. There is a terrific food fight sequence here which I will not spoil.
"Easy Living" is a rags-to-riches story perfect for a depression era comedy. A poor working girl, Mary Smith (Jean Arthur) is sitting on a bus going to work when all of a sudden a mink coat falls from the sky and hits her on the head.
The coat was thrown by J.B. Ball (Edward Arnold) a very successful banker who has become fed up with his family's lavish spending. His son, J.B. Jr. (Ray Milland) doesn't work and just lives off his father, while his wife does nothing but spend his money on clothes. The mink coat she bought costed $58,000. Imagine what that meant in 1937!
When J.B. Ball sees Mary Smith with the coat, as she goes from door to door trying to find the owner of the coat, he tells her she can keep it. I assume he respects the fact that she works. Mary is a little confused and tells him she doesn't want the coat. But he won't take no for an answer. He even offers to drive her to work, since she missed her bus. When she complains that her hat is now destroyed he even offers to buy her a new one. And that is where trouble starts.
In the hat shop, which is run by Mr. Van Buren (Franklin Pangborn, a Sturges regular) he starts to spread gossip that Mary is really J.B. Ball's mistress. Why else would she be wearing a mink coat and he buying her a hat, right? So every department store owner wants to give Mary gifts in hopes of getting stock tips from Ball.
Modern audiences might find the story corny. A coat falls on a woman's head and people think she's rich. So what! But that's what I love about the film. It is a perfect, silly, set-up just ripe for all sorts of comedic possibilities. And it is incredibly charming.
Jean Arthur was so good at playing the typical average American working girl. Watch her in a pair of George Stevens' classics; "The Talk of the Town" with Ronald Coleman and Cary Grant and "The More the Merrier" with Joel McCrea. She was nominated for an Oscar for that performance. She had a good instinct for comedy. She was good at playing with words and pauses in just the right spots. She always made you want to root for her. She was a sweet kid with a heart of gold but also had street smarts, watch Frank Capra's "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town".
Edward Arnold I'm not use to seeing get top billing. He was a character actor probably best known for his appearance in two Capra classics; the "Best Picture" Oscar winner, "You Can't Take It With You" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington". He also had a funny part in a lesser known Ronald Reagan comedy "John Loves Mary".
Ray Milland shows he had a good leading man quality to him. Too bad he became a drunk ("The Lost Weekend"). This is the kind of role Jimmy Stewart would play. It fact in some ways he did in "You Can Take It With You". A rich kid ashamed of being rich. He wants to accomplish his own things in life. When he meets Mary he never tells her that he is rich.
"Easy Living" is a fun movie for fans of Preston Sturges and Jean Arthur to watch. Those of us who enjoy classic movies often complain they don't make 'em like they use to. While that is true, what can we possibly do about it? Why sit and complain? Better to watch movies like "Easy Living" and forget about what Hollywood releases today. You'll feel better in the end.
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