Easy Living (Universal Cinema Classics)
by Mitchell Leisen
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Edward Arnold, Jean Arthur, Ray MillandDirector: Mitchell Leisen
Brand: Universal
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 88 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-04-22
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Universal Studios
Movie Reviews of Easy Living (Universal Cinema Classics)
Movie Review: Good crazy, zany fun
Summary: 5 Stars
If there was ever a comedy that could start on one little thing and snowball into something bigger, well,this is the flick; Jean Arthur,who was in her heyday at the time of this flick(Mr Deeds Goes to Town, Mr Smith Goes to Washington,You Can't Take it With You)plays a working girl minding her business when a fur coat falls literally on her lap. Let me go back a bit. Edward Arnold and his wife were fussing about her buying stuff out of control. Though he was rich, it IS the Depression, and if you looked in that woman's closets, you would wonder why she acted the way she did because she had more than enough. Anyway, he took the coat she was hollering about and threw it down where it fell on Jean Arthur who was riding a double decker bus. Well, she tries to give the coat back to the owner, but Arnold persuades her to keep it and buys her a hat to go along with the coat since her other hat got damaged when the coat fell on her. She gets to work late, which she acknowledges, but the folks being a bit nosy for their own goods fire her and set about a serious chain reaction. Well, she goes home, finds a note from Louie Louie(Luis Alberni), asking her to meet him at his establishment.(By now, the man in the hat store thought Arthur and Arnold were in a relationship and put two and two together wrongly and alerted Louie) Alberni needing the publicity for his hotel because Arnold already told him he need to get current on his mortgages, have Arthur stay there for the same amount she spent at the previous place she was at(with one egg). suddenly, new clothes appear, stock tips are asked for and she is wondering why all of this is happening. Then she goes to the Automat and runs in Ray Milland(Arnold's son), who feeling sorry for her, tries to give her the hook up, but gets caught and loses his job, but not before everyone else gets a hook up too, courtesy of the two men fighting. That scene is the zaniest of all scenes. well one of two scenes; The other is when Edward Arnold keeps getting the ticker tapes and his phones tangled up. (I am sure they would have appreciated some cell phones if they were invented at the time). Because of an assumption, a young girl's reputation is at stake, a mans marriage and business is about to hit the toilet and things get to a serious head, but cleared up by the end of the flick. One interesting note of this film is that future director Preston Sturges wrote this screenplay(whose fingerprints are quite evident with the scenes); worth a couple of good laughs after a long day and for those classic movie lovers who appreciate a good flick.
Summary of Easy Living (Universal Cinema Classics)
Jean Arthur and Ray Milland shine in this screwball comedy written by Academy Award? winner* Preston Sturges. Mary Smith (Arthur) is a poor working girl who literally has a fortune dropped in her lap when a wealthy financier (Edward Arnold) tosses a sable coat out a window and it lands on her. Everyone automatically assumes she's his mistress, and soon her fairytale-like rags-to-riches lifestyle threatens a very real romance with an inept waiter (Milland). It's a "delightful comedy" (Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide) full of misunderstandings that showcases high-society slapstick at its best!Of all the screenplays Preston Sturges wrote for Paramount before becoming the greatest comic director of his generation, 1937's Easy Living seems the most like something he would have filmed himself--a satirical fable about chance, class, and the absurdity of the American dream. Jean Arthur is a New York secretary riding to work atop a double-decker bus when a fur coat miraculously descends from the sky and settles on her shoulders. The fur, however, has not dropped from Olympus but from the hand of a millionaire (Edward Arnold) who has just tossed it from a nearby roof to punish his wife. But as if it were a magic fleece (the mythical reference is almost certainly intended by the erudite Sturges), it makes its wearer invincible, conferring an aura of prosperity, celebrity, and power on the previously average working girl. No folk tale is complete without a prince: Sturges's is the millionaire's son, Ray Milland, who is trying to pass as an apprentice stockbroker. Directed with a light, elegant touch by Mitchell Leisen, the film lacks the crazy energy it would have had under Sturges's own hand, but this remains one of the great screwball comedies (in a year that also saw The Awful Truth and Nothing Sacred). --Dave Kehr
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