Steineded How sad is this?

XoWizIama Excellent adaptation.

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Robert J. Maxwell Jean Arthur, poor girl, is given a gift by blustery Edward Arnold, rich man. The two are strangers who have met by accident and don't even bother to learn each others' names but certain people misunderstand. Why would "the bull of Wall Street" give a pretty blond a $58,000 mink coat unless they were playing doctor? The movie is sometimes very funny and sometimes plain silly but it moves with the momentum of a tsunami and it's hard to resist. It was written by Preston Sturges who was about to make a couple of comic masterpieces and they're adumbrated in some of these scenes. I don't know if you're familiar with the scene in "Sullivan's Travels" in which a huge recreational vehicle speeds over rutted rural roads but the slapstick there is echoed in the slapstick here, in a scene that takes place in an automat and had me laughing out loud.There's nothing subtle about the comedy. Mistaken identities, rich and poor, slightly risqué, and everybody talks at full volume and rushes around in a frenzy. It may be Eugene Pallet elsewhere but it's Edward Arnold here, who looks like the manager of a German pork store in Yorkville who is about to pop a gut with anger and frustration.Ray Milland has had better roles. He's no Cary Grant. But Jean Arthur and her tangential prettiness is perfect. Franklin Pangborn has always played an effete wimp, but here he's at his most flamboyantly gay. Luis Alberni as the Italian owner of a ritzy hotel isn't as amusing as the script seems to think he is, and he overacts like everyone else. Yet in its own unquiet way it's a successful screwball comedy. The director, Mitchell Leisen, does a craftsmanlike job but one can't help wondering what Howard Hawks would have done with material like this.Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin don't get any screen credit for writing the title tune which is heard briefly as a jaunty instrumental with wide intervals. It was turned into a light and charming ballad and became a minor standard in vernacular culture. You can hear a snatch of it in "Chinatown."

krdement My favorite films are from the '30s to the late '40s. Jean Arthur is one of my favorite actresses. Edward Arnold is one of my favorite character actors. I looked forward to this film with high expectations, but was very disappointed.The reason this movie disappointed me is difficult to pinpoint. Without more background, some elements of the story just don't seem to add up. There is a whole lot of yelling in this movie; that gets old. Oh yeah, and lots of slapstick. The Automat scene was waaaay too long. But mostly, the characters just don't seem quite on the mark. In addition to many great dramas, Miss Arthur's resume includes many of my favorite comedies: The Whole Town's Talking (1935), If You Could Only Cook (1935), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), The Ex-Mrs. Bradford (1936), You Can't Take It With You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Town (1939), The Devil and Miss Jones (1941), The Talk of the Town (1942), The More the Merrier (1943), A Foreign Affair (1948). I recommend them all over Easy Living. I even prefer A Lady Takes a Chance (1943).As much as I love Jean Arthur, her character here isn't portrayed quite right. She is just too innocent and unquestioning of everything that happens. Her attitude should have been less naive and more like, "I don't really understand why this windfall has come my way, but I'm going to take advantage of it while I can." She needed to be less ingenuous and more opportunistic. Her idealism and optimism needed to be tempered by a little realistic skepticism.The character of the Hotelier (Luis Alberni) is an immigrant Italian chef who has learned fluent American slang somewhere, but also has opened a HUGE, opulent hotel for upper crust clientèle. So, he has this great ambition to run an elite hotel, but doesn't see the need to speak to his proposed clientèle any differently than the boys in the Bronx? PLUS, we don't know how he convinced the "Number 3" financier in New York to finance this operation. How much money did this humble chef bring with him when he immigrated from Italy? Moreover, Arnold, the shrewd banker, has extended the guy not 1, not 2, but 3 mortgages! AND the 1st mortgage is overdue by 3 YEARS, the 2nd by 2 YEARS and the 1st by 1 YEAR! Not consistent with Arnold's character at all!Ray Milland is pretty light weight, and he never infuses his character with more than 1 dimension.There isn't really a character with whom I could identify. For me, a successful screwball comedy needs one stable character for all of the silliness to revolve around. That gives the audience somebody to identify with and grounds the movie in some kind of reality. William Powell in My Man Godfrey and Brian Aherne in Merrily We Live are the best examples.I thought this movie was a lot of noise and action that never really drew me into the story. In sum, I felt like an outsider watching a movie. It never really tickled my funny bone or inspired my empathy as better comedies do.

Neil Doyle JEAN ARTHUR as a down on her luck secretary (who pays $7 a week for an apartment) is suddenly blessed with a luxurious hotel suite and a sable coat thanks to the whims of fate in this delightful '30s-era comedy co-starring EDWARD ARNOLD (a bit too bombastic for my taste) and RAY MILLAND (charming and debonair as the romantic lead).Arthur has never been more personable and inhabits her role with a good deal of personal charm and warmth, perhaps attributable to director Mitchel Leisen who always seems to coax good performances from his female stars. (Claudette Colbert in "Midnight", Carole Lombard in "Hands Across the Table", Olivia de Havilland in "Hold Back the Dawn" and "To Each His Own", Barbara Stanwyck in "No Man of Her Own".) Arnold is a hot tempered man who throws a fur coat over the rooftop during an argument with his frivolous wife (MARY NASH), a coat that lands on top of Jean Arthur, riding in a double-decker bus in New York City. The plot thickens when a hotel owner (LUIS ALBERNI) facing bankrupt with his fancy but vacant building, decides that Arthur will be the perfect publicity gimmick since he believes she was given the coat because of an affair with Arnold. He allows her to reside in a luxurious suite (Leisen goes a bit overboard on set decoration here), and therein the fun begins. Seems he has a rich playboy son who is just as down on his luck as Arthur is and is working in an automat, the kind of fast food restaurant that existed in NYC during the '30s and '40s.In fact, the automat scene, where Milland finds a way to give Arthur a free meal, is expertly staged with every pratfall so perfectly executed that it remains the highlight of the film. But even after this highlight, the film never lets up in pace and is irresistible entertainment for fans of screwball comedy. Among the standouts in the supporting cast are FRANKLIN PANGBORN and WILLIAM DEMAREST, actors director Leisen would use to great effect in other comedies.Edward Arnold tends to overact the part of the wealthy hot-tempered tycoon, but everyone else has a fine time with the witty lines and situations. Highly recommended, brisk and very amusing, with Arthur in one of her most appealing roles.

theowinthrop Although it has become part of a legendary case of sour grapes, EASY LIVING is one of the best "screwball" comedies of the 1930s. The plot is very easy - Jean Arthur is a working woman - the youngest editor at a boy's magazine - who is walking along Wall Street when she is hit by a falling object - a mink coat. It has been thrown off the balcony of a large office building, which is the headquarters of one J. B. Ball, "the bull of Wall Street". This is Edward Arnold, here doing a great spoof of all his tycoon parts. Arnold's wife (Mary Nash) bought the expensive coat without getting his permission (he's rich, but he does not want his family to get soft, and considers the mink a needless luxury). Arnold does not realize what happened when he threw out the mink. Besides angering Nash (who packs up and goes away threatening to divorce him), his blundering to try to get back the coat (to return it, of course) publicizes his connection to Arthur, so that soon people think Arnold gave the coat to Arthur (i.e., she's his mistress).Arnold's son (Ray Milland) is actually trying to prove himself without any aid from Dad (he doesn't want to be a junior partner in the bank yet). So he is going through all sorts of jobs, with less than middling success. Arnold is not impressed - he can't figure out why his son is such a mediocre worker. Milland meets Arthur accidentally, when he is working in the auto-mat (which will lead to the best known sequence in the film). In the meantime, Arthur is approached by two men, Mr. Louis Louis (Luis Alberni) who is the owner of the Hotel Louis - the most glamorous hotel in the world - and Mr. E.F. Hulgar (Andrew Tombes) who is a leading stock investment adviser. Both men believe that Arthur is Arnold's mistress. Alberni wants Arthur to live in the Hotel for a pittance: he feels her presence may cause other socialites to use the hotel, which is facing bankruptcy. Tombes is willing to pay Arthur a fee if she hears anything (pertaining to rumors concerning Arnold's latest efforts to corner the steel market).I won't go into the plot more, except that Sturges script has real fun about the unreality of Wall Street. Arnold's brilliant investment banker may plot a steel corner (which nearly backfires), but he has difficulty doing simple mathematics regarding fractions and percentages (the hopelessness in his face counting a percentage differential with his fingers is priceless!). Alberni, who was a hotel chef with grandiose ideas, can't see that building the world's greatest luxury hotel was not a good idea in the Depression (Sturges, by the way, based this idiocy on the building of the second, current, Waldorf Astoria Hotel in the early 1930s - it was a flop initially). That brilliant investment adviser, Mr. Hulgar (whose name is an obvious swipe at E.F.Hutton) pays for tips which are basically gossip, and passes these onto his customers. Sturges (like Billy Wilder) would later make nasty comments about Leisin, both future directors claiming Leisin ruined their satire and spoofery in the films he directed from their scripts. As I mentioned elsewhere, Leisin was not as cynical as they were, but he certainly had a good sense of humor, and he had a sense of art composition (he had assisted Cecil B. De Mille as an art director in the early 1930s) that far outshone Sturges or Wilder. One looks at the suites of Hotel Louis and they are quite stunning. One can't imagine Sturges or Wilder doing as well with decor (although Sturges might have added some comic defect in it). In EASY LIVING, the best known sequence was added by Leisin - a piece of classic slapstick. In the middle of an argument with his bosses at the auto-mat, Milland causes the doors of all the windows containing food to open at one time without money being used to open them. Suddenly every bum and hobo in New York City runs in to grab free food, and food is being thrown around by fighting hobos covering everyone in sight. Not a bad moment of comic cinema - and Preston Sturges was not responsible for it at all. Mitchell Leisin should be better known today for his best films. He was not as great as Wilder or Sturges but he was not a hack.