Black & White World

Easy Living (1937)

This one suffered under the weight of my own anticipation.  For years I’ve been looking forward to seeing this film starring Jean Arthur, directed by Mitchell Leisen and written by Preston Sturges.  I was just sure it was going to be a laugh riot.  It hasn’t been available on DVD or even VHS (I don’t think it was ever released on VHS at all, at any rate I certainly never could find it), and like lots of old great Paramount films, Turner Classic Movies didn’t have it in their library.

TCM came through for me at last, though, and premiered Easy Living last week.  I was so excited I could hardly wait.  Sadly, the movie itself didn’t match the anticipation level.  There are a lot of broad, physical slapstick moments—and I don’t think I mind the slapstick itself, or the frequency.  It was the fact that those sequences went on way too long.  In particular, a mad free-for-all at an automat goes on at least two minutes too long, and two minutes is LONG in a comedy.  I wonder if Sturges recognized this, and if that was the impetus for pursuing directing?  Leisen is a competent director of romantic comedies, but it doesn’t seem he’s got much flair for the broader physical stuff.

Still, Jean Arthur is cute, and her chemistry with Ray Milland is not bad.  I just felt like there was more potential in the story than we saw on screen.  I suspect if Sturges had directed it would have turned on quite different, and perhaps quite a bit better.