EASY LIVING: Blu-ray (Paramount, 1937) Kino Lorber

Based on a story idea by Vera Caspary (who would later write the classic noir, Ring Twice for Laura – made into Otto Preminger’s masterpiece, Laura 1944), director, Mitchell Leisen’s Easy Living (1937) is a divinely inspired screwball comedy scripted by Preston Sturges, soon to become a celebrated writer/director of like-minded fare at Paramount, primarily due to this film’s success; also, his contempt for the way his screenplays were oft being interpreted by ‘other’ men seated behind the camera. Evidently, Sturges believed he could do better. But Easy Living, however, remains a gemstone in both men’s crown, starring winsome scatterbrain, Jean Arthur, fresh from her triumphant turn in Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) opposite Gary Cooper. Like so many movies produced during the Great Depression, Easy Living is a parable about the perils of wealth and getting what you want – or think you deserve out of life. A closeted homosexual, Leisen perhaps understood women a lot better than men. His screwball comedies teem with vivacious – if nutty – ladies who really give the men in their lives a run for their money. Leisen had entered Hollywood in the mid-1920’s as a mere ‘hand’ in the art and costume departments at Paramount, relegated to background help, but steadily working his way through the ranks in those early silent years, and finally, marking his directorial debut in 1933 with a minor and maudlin programmer, Cradle Song. With rapid succession, he established himself as the purveyor of a glossy aesthetic equally applied to melodramas and screwball comedies: hits to include Death Takes a Holiday and Murder at the Vanities (both in 1934), Claudette Colbert’s Cinderella-esque fable, Midnight (1939) and the tear-jerker, Hold Back the Dawn (1941), Leisen’s niche as a man of high style and perfectionism was secured at Paramount and Easy Living falls right in the middle of this early golden period.

Reportedly, Sturges’ arrangement with Paramount in 1936 gave him carte blanche to adapt Easy Living to his own likes. In accordance with these, Sturges jettisoned all but Caspary’s title and an incident from the original involving a harried millionaire who tosses his wife’s sable coat over the balcony of their high-rise penthouse apartment. When one of the studio executives rejected Sturges’ final draft outright, Sturges merely went over his head, submitting it to Leisen – a ballsy decision as Leisen petitioned to do the film, leaving the unknown exec with egg on his face. In his emeritus years, Sturges would reflect that “going over the head of my producer was not a sagacious move.” Leisen admired Sturges’ chutzpah, to a point, and worked directly with him on several sight gags not originally part of Sturges’ screenplay, but nevertheless embraced by Sturges, who recognized Leisen’s lithe tempo in comic timing. Initially, Adolphe Menjou – a beloved of Paramount – was hired for the part of the robust, but harried millionaire, J.B. Ball. Illness forced Menjou to withdraw, the part going to Edward Arnold instead.

And herein we pause, to remember Arnold, whose formidable girth, bulbous head, beady eyes and penguin-like nose ought to never have allowed him to ascend so quickly into Hollywood’s upper echelons as one of their most instantly recognizable character actors. Fascinated by acting while barely in his teens, the ambitious Arnold found extra work at both Essanay and World Studios, before landing a sizable part in 1916's The Misleading Lady. Judging the movies as inferior to the stage – a popular misconception then – Arnold left picture-making in 1919 and did not return to it until 1932’s Okay America! – his first talkie. He then, had back-to-back hits with Whistling in the Dark (1933) and Diamond Jim (1935); the latter, catapulting him to stardom. So indelible was he as Diamond Jim Brady, Arnold was asked to reprise his role for 1940’s lavishly appointed Fox musical, Lillian Russell. And although he would be branded ‘box office poison’ in 1938, instructed by his agent to lose weight in order to get more ‘leading man’ roles, Arnold was never left wanting for work, appearing in 150 movies. “The bigger I got, the better character roles I received,” he later mused, “I was so sought-after I often worked on two pictures at the same time.” Arnold’s métier, combining elements of the rake and imposing authority, are well on tap in Easy Living, as the befuddled center of attention in an extra-marital scandal that, in reality, never happened.

And in Jean Arthur, Arnold has the perfect foil to play off. Perhaps no other star of the 1930’s came to embody the classic screwball heroine; Arthur, a miraculous confection of nervous insecurities and winsome giddiness, to morph into the quintessence of that nutty but nice gal/pal, who could just as easily break the heart as fill it with the amenities of silliness and joy. Of her tenure in Hollywood, Arthur once reflected, “I don't think Hollywood is the place to be yourself. On the stage…the director encouraged me and I learned…to face audiences and to forget them. To see the footlights and not to see them; to gauge the reactions of hundreds of people, and yet to throw myself so completely into a role that I was oblivious to their reaction.” She was discovered by Fox while doing commercial modeling in the 1920’s, taking her stage name from two of her most-admired heroes: Joan of Arc (Jeanne D’Arc) and King Arthur. At the outset of her career, Arthur was remade by the studios in the vein of America’s sweetheart with sex appeal – a mold Arthur later admitted she was ill-suited to fill. Nevertheless, by 1927, her salary had gone from $25 to $700 a picture, and, at the dawn of the talkies, she was making $150 a week!  Having heard Arthur could be counted upon to be difficult – arguably, a defense mechanism for her own lingering lack of confidence – Mitchell Leisen endeavored to cater to his star in every way possible. In fact, he seemed to implicitly understand Arthur’s quirks, marking a personal investment in her wardrobe and even personally contributing to her hair-styling. Mitchell was lucky to get Arthur, who had somewhat blackened her reputation at her alma mater, Columbia – enough for mogul, Harry Cohn to be very happy to loan her out to Paramount to do this picture.  

But the real snafu for Easy Living was between 2oth Century-Fox and Paramount; the former contesting the latter had ‘stolen’ inspiration from a barely known Hungarian play - Der Komet by Attila Orbok; the rights owned by Fox, who had already turned it into 1933’s My Lips Betray and were angling to reuse its premise for Sonja Henie’s latest movie – Thin Ice. Ultimately, Fox would back away from their lawsuit and Easy Living proceeded on its fast track into production. The plot of Easy Living is joyously simply, but ingenious, beginning in earnest when Manhattan’s 3rd richest financier, J.B. Ball (Edward Arnold), the so called ‘Bull of Broad St.’, tosses his wife, Jenny’s (Mary Nash) sable coat off the roof top of their fashionable penthouse. For J.B. the coat represents yet another tangible frivolity to which his family has become accustomed; including his spendthrift son, John Jr. (Ray Milland) who has just purchased a foreign automobile on credit. The coat floats down to street level, striking working girl, Mary Smith (Jean Arthur) in the head while she is seated on the open top of a double-decker bus, ruining her hat and prompting her to go door to door in search of its rightful owner. As luck would have it, Mary and J.B. meet on the street. He implores her to keep the coat as compensation for her troubles. After Mary informs J.B. she is late for work at The Boy’s Constant Companion – a periodical for young men – J.B. not only offers to drive her there, but also buys Mary a new hat. Unfortunately, J.B. gets more trouble than he bargains for when the hat shop’s owner, Van Buren (Franklin Pangborn) leaks the sale to Mr. Louis Louis (Luis Alberni) who is about to have his hotel foreclosed on by J.B.

Assuming Mary is J.B.’s mistress, Louis Louis sets her up in a fashionable suite inside his hotel where he is certain J.B. will come to call – hence, establishing a means to blackmail J.B. and save his hotel from foreclosure. Instead, Mary accidentally meets John Jr. at the local automat where he has temporarily found employment at the behest of his father. As fate would have it, these two hapless souls become instant soul mates – a wrinkle that gets misconstrued by the hotel management and a Wall Street trader as a perpetuation of the ‘so called affair’ between Mary and J.B. After overhearing a conversation between Mary and John, one of the traders makes the erroneous assumption steel stock prices will plummet, creating sudden investor panic in the U.S. market that threatens to stir into another Great Depression. Further muddling the misconception, stockbroker E.F. Hulgar (Andrew Tombes) asks Mary for inside information about the state of steel from Mr. Ball. As the only Ball Mary knows is John Jr., she consults him. He jokingly tells her prices are about to fall and she passes this information along to Hulgar, who runs with it. As a result of this ‘insider’s tip-off’ everybody begins to sell their assets, just as J.B. is starting to buy. Inadvertently, this influx causes J.B.'s company to teeter on the brink of bankruptcy. When Mary, John, and J.B. finally get together and figure out what is going on, John comes up with a bright solution. Mary will tell Hulgar that J.B. has cornered the market. She does and prices rebound, pulling J.B. and his company back from the edge of financial ruin. Relieved, J.B. offers his son a job. With his newfound position and reinstatement into the family’s fortunes, John Jr. asks Mary to be his wife.

The great good fun in most screwball comedies is to be found in their superb obfuscation of the truth and how just a little observation can trigger a seemingly hapless chain of inconsequential events into a snowball entirely out of control. Easy Living is no exception. From the moment the coat strikes Mary full in the face, her good fortunes hit the ground running – creating an avalanche of misfortune for any and all who come in contact with her.  Director Leisen revels in these implausible and humorous entanglements; Sturges’ screenplay, an ever-mounting absurdity, ladled with hyperbole, sham, and, of course, cliché. All this creates a memorable roller coaster ride for our protagonists. Easy Living is a crazy quilt with some grandly amusing vignettes and a lot of old masters - nuttier than thou - unleashed in all their agitated and thoroughly silly aplomb. Jean Arthur is a genuine treasure; her Mary, inadvertently setting off this powder keg of speculations and controversy simply by trying to do the right thing. Arthur's exuberant frustration, the modest tremble in her voice, creates a pleasantly frazzled heroine. She and Ray Milland - still going through his congenial phase as the pretty boy/leading man – have genuine on-screen chemistry. His thoroughly befuddled playboy is the perfect foil for Arthur's no-nonsense innocent.

Kino Lorber has inherited another curious 1080p transfer from Universal Home Video – the ‘likely’ recipient of some basic remastering, insofar as this latest incarnation of Easy Living in no way resembles the image quality apparent on Uni’s now defunct DVD. While the DVD was darker, with deeper contrast and amplified grain, ever so slightly cropped on all four sides, this Blu-ray shows more information and is infinitely more brightly lit. The result of this ‘brighter’ image is that we lose some refined black levels. There are no true or even modestly deep blacks. Contrast can seem marginally anemic and mid-register tonality in the gray scale gets blown out. It looks adequate in motion, but I cannot say this is how Easy Living looked in theaters in 1937. Indeed, I found this presentation wanting for contrast. Overall clarity ranges from adequate to quite good, and fine details are generally pleasing throughout. There is a light smattering of film grain looking indigenous to its source. The 1.0 DTS mono audio is passable, if hardly exceptional. Kat Hellinger weighs in with another audio commentary. She has become something of a main staple with Kino, but I really have my misgivings wading through her reflections, as many appear to be based on nothing more – or better – than her personal impressions, with very little – if any - factoid knowledge to go on. When she paints herself into a corner, she merely recites facts and figures regarding the principle cast; nothing, one cannot glean from accessing Wikipedia or IMDB. Ho-hum. There is also a theatrical trailer. We lose the brief intro given by TCM’s late host, Robert Osbourne.  Bottom line: Easy Living is a bright and breezy, highly enjoyable comedy of errors. This Blu is adequate, if not stellar. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

3

EXTRAS

1