| Easy Living | |
|---|---|
 Film poster | |
| Directed by | Mitchell Leisen |
| Screenplay by | Preston Sturges |
| Story by | Vera Caspary |
| Produced by | Arthur Hornblow Jr. |
| Starring | Jean Arthur Edward Arnold Ray Milland |
| Cinematography | Ted Tetzlaff |
| Edited by | Doane Harrison |
| Music by | Boris Morros |
| Color process | Black and white |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 88 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Easy Living is a 1937 Americanscrewball comedy film, directed byMitchell Leisen, written byPreston Sturges from a story byVera Caspary, and starringJean Arthur,Edward Arnold, andRay Milland. Many of the supporting players (William Demarest,Franklin Pangborn,Luis Alberni,Robert Greig,Olaf Hytten, andArthur Hoyt) became a major part of Sturges' regular stock company of character actors in his subsequent films.
Ralph Rainger andLeo Robin composed the song "Easy Living" for the film, and it has since become ajazz standard, made famous byBillie Holiday,Ella Fitzgerald, and many other jazz singers.[1]
The film bears no relation to the1949 RKO drama by the same name.
J.B. Ball, the third richest banker in America, has a fight with his son John Jr. over breakfast. It ends with the son leaving, determined to prove that he can make his own way. Ball becomes infuriated after learning that his wife Jenny bought a $58,000sable fur coat ($1.3M in 2025) and he decides it has to be returned. After finding many fur coats in her closet, Ball grabs the sable coat. Jenny takes it from him, and a chase takes them to the roof of theirNew York Citypenthouse. He throws it over the edge.
It lands on Mary Smith while she is riding to work on adouble-decker bus. When she tries to return it, he tells her to keep it, without telling her how costly it is. He also buys her an expensive new hat to replace the one damaged in the incident, causing Van Buren, the owner of the shop, to mistake her for Ball'smistress. Van Buren loses no time in spreading the word. When Mary shows up for work, her straitlaced boss suspects her of behaving improperly to get a coat she obviously cannot afford and fires her to protect the reputation of theBoy's Constant Companion, the magazine he publishes.
Mary is nearly penniless, but she begins receiving offers from people eager to cash in on her notoriety. Hotel owner Mr. Louis Louis installs her in a luxury suite, hoping that this will deter Ball fromforeclosing on his failing establishment. When Mary goes to anautomat for a meal, she meets John Jr., who is working there anonymously. However, he is fired for giving Mary free food and starting a food fight. When Mary finds out he has no place to stay, she invites him to share her enormous suite while he looks for a new job. They quickly fall in love. Meanwhile, J.B.'s wife goes to Florida, he moves into the Hotel Louis, and reports of a nonexistent affair make their way into gossip columns. The hotel instantly becomes popular with the elite, and various luxury firms begin giving Mary jewelry, clothes, and a sixteen-cylinder car.
Mary's supposed connection to J.B. has disastrous consequences for thestock market.Stockbroker E.F. Hulgar asks her for inside information aboutsteel from Mr. Ball. The only Ball the confused Mary knows is John Jr., so she consults him. He jokingly tells her it is going down, and she passes this along to Hulgar. As a result, everybody begins selling just as J.B. starts buying, causing his firm to teeter on the brink ofbankruptcy. Jenny returns from Florida. When Mary, John, and J.B. finally get together and figure out what is going on, John comes up with a bright solution: Mary tells Hulgar that J.B. hascornered the market on steel. Prices shoot up, rescuing the beleaguered financier. The delighted J.B. gives his son a job, and John Jr. asks Mary to be his wife.
Cast notes:
Preston Sturges had signed a deal with Paramount in 1936, andEasy Living was his first assignment for them. Although putatively based on a story byVera Caspary, Sturges in fact supposedly kept almost nothing of it except the fur coat. When a studio executive rejected the script because "1936 was not the time for comedies", Sturges took the script directly toMitchell Leisen, of which Sturges said "going to a director over the head of my producer was not a sagacious move".[2]
Preston based the Hotel Louis on theWaldorf Towers, which was a financial flop when it first opened.
Adolphe Menjou was to have been in the cast ofEasy Living, but was forced to withdraw due to illness. The minor surgery of director Leisen caused production to be postponed a week to April 5, 1937.
Leisen said that Ray Milland got stuck in the tub while shooting the bathtub scene, and although the incident wasn't in the script, Leisen kept the camera rolling and inserted the bit into the film. The phone gag with Esther Dale as the secretary was based on the behavior of Leisen's secretary, who got the phones on her desk mixed up.
Under the belief that an actress needs to be satisfied with the way she will look in order to devote all her attention to her acting, Leisen personally directed all of Arthur's wardrobe and hair tests, and went so far as to style her hair himself. (Leisen had come to directing from the world of costume design and art direction).
Leisen's pains paid off – the shy and nervous Jean Arthur had a reputation for being difficult, but the director had no trouble with her onEasy Living, which was all the more surprising since Arthur was in the middle of a bitter dispute withColumbia Pictures'Harry Cohn. Dissatisfied with the films Columbia was putting her in, she wanted out of her contract. (Arthur was contractually able to do two outside pictures a year, which is why she could doEasy Living for Paramount).[3]
It has been reported in Jean Arthur's biography and elsewhere (Bob Dorian on American Movie Classics a few years ago) that the jewels and furs Arthur wore in the film were genuine, and that guards were posted during the filming.
A legal dispute betweenTwentieth-Century Fox and Paramount over the source for the film threatened to hold up its release. Fox asserted that the film was based on a Hungarian play calledDer Komet by Attila Orbok, which they owned and had used as the basis forMy Lips Betray (1933) and were planning to use as the basis for an upcomingSonja Henie film,Thin Ice. Fox eventually backed off their claim of infringement, andEasy Living was released as scheduled on July 7, 1937.
Variety calledEasy Living a "poor imitation [ofMy Man Godfrey]", adding that "[unlike the latter, this one lacks] spontaneity and cleverness".[4]
Onreview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of100 percent based on 10 critics, with an average rating of 7.9/10.[5]