Easy Living (1937)
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Easy Living Movie Review
Easy Living is a 1937 screwball comedy film directed by Mitchell Leisen, written by Preston Sturges and starring Jean Arthur and Ray Milland. It’s a solid, but highly disappointing flick.
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“You don’t have to get mad just because you’re so stupid“
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The plot itself is pretty good and it sets up many good comedic possibilities and some do happen, but many do not unfortunately. The film’s first act is difficult to get accustomed to as it starts out of nowhere and the second act is easily the highlight and the most well crafted one. But the third one introduced market problems into the whole mix and I was bored with it quite a bit.
There are some very silly moments here and too much yelling and ridiculous scenarios. What I liked is the characterization which is pretty strong and the central relationship between its two protagonists which is excellent and the two actors shared great chemistry here.
Edward Arnold talks and yells too much and is the example of everything that is wrong with this movie. I did not care for his character at all. But Ray Milland and Jean Arthur both play wonderful, highly sympathetic characters and they have charming interactions with each other. Ray Milland is quite likable here and of course Jean Arthur is as endearing as ever. Truly there is not a more likable actress in the history of Hollywood than her.
Easy Living has very strong dialogue per usual for screwball comedies and terrific acting across the board. The pacing is also good as the film is quite brisk. The humor is problematic as some of it was pretty good, but some scenes are dated, overly silly and relying too much on ridiculous scenarios and bombastic developments.
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Preston Sturges wrote the screenplay for this film and you can definitely see some of his trademarks here as he has a great knack for writing social comedies and fantastic characters. However, he should have directed this project too and it would have ended up much better having in mind that Mitchell Leisen’s direction here is quite unremarkable. So the movie ended up being perfectly solid, but far from the genre’s high standards.
Easy Living features a strong romance at the center of it with Ray Milland being memorable and Jean Arthur being reliably very endearing. It has some amusing sequences, but it also has some dull ones. Preston Sturges wrote the film so well, but Mitchell Leisen directed it poorly leading to one pretty solid, but highly disappointing screwball comedy.
