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How sad is this?

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The slapstick comedy made certain scenes in the hotel difficult to follow. The premise was weak. Most women who had a fur coat fall on their heads while riding in a vehicle would not have made such an effort to return it by dismounting from the bus and walking the street, especially near the close of the Great Depression. People were still out of work and hungry the coat that was worth $58,000 would be worth nearly one million dollars in today's money.

Manhattan millionaire Edward Arnold (as John "J.B." Ball) is upset when he sees the bill for his wife's newest fur coat, a $58,000 sable. He tosses the coat off their Fifth Avenue rooftop and it lands on beautiful blonde Jean Arthur (as Mary Smith), ruining her feathered hat. She attempts to find the coat's owner, and meets Mr. Arnold. He gives Ms. Arthur the coat, and offers to buy her a new hat. Their swishy store clerk Franklin Pangborn (as Van Buren) starts a rumor hinting at a sexual relationship between Arthur and Arnold. When her straight-laced co-workers see Arthur in her expensive attire, she loses her job. Arthur may become homeless, but fate intervenes... When hotel owner Luis Alberni (as Louis Louis) learns about Arthur's alleged relationship, he invites her to stay in a luxurious suite. Enjoy Arthur surveying her beautiful hotel suite, without trying to remember all the steps that led her there. "Easy Living" doesn't transition clearly from situation to situation. Drawing on his past work, director Mitchell Leisen makes much of it look artful. He may have added additional slapstick to Preston Sturges' screenplay, which helps fill in the blanks. Also starring eligible young Ray Milland (as John Ball Jr.) and well-dressed Mary Nash (as Jenny Ball).******* Easy Living (7/7/37) Mitchell Leisen ~ Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold, Ray Milland, Luis Alberni

Another in the long line of extremely pleasurable comedies starring Jean Arthur--no one can make fluttery bewilderment more enchanting, and there's plenty to be bewildered about in this heavenly screwball farce. Arthur is poor, honest, hardworking Mary Smith, whose life is changed when a sable coat thrown out of a window lands on her head. She tries to return it, but the man who threw it, rich banker J.P. Ball (Edward Arnold), in a fit of pique at his wife's extravagance, insists she keep it, and even buys her a matching hat in a nearby store. The store's employees, assuming she's a fancy kept woman (the idea!) spread the word around town, and soon everyone in sight wants to be her best pal, not least of all Arnold's son (Ray Milland), who is trying to make his way in the world without his father's backing. Although scenes such as Arthur's dismissal from her job (for "ethical violations") have become dated (without losing their humor), the portrait of an entire city eagerly sucking up to a (supposed) rich man's consort in hopes something will rub off on them couldn't be more timely. The movie has some of the best choreographed pratfalls in the genre, not least of all in the celebrated Automat sequence, when the windows accidentally open and everyone scrambles for the free food. (It's slapstick Marxism). And Arthur's pleased yet skeptical reaction to the enormous hotel suite she's offered (it looks like it belongs in the Emerald City of Oz) is just right; she looks at the lily-shaped tub, which is crowned by a statue of a shrugging goddess, and comments, "Look at her standing there with her arms sticking out; I guess she doesn't know either.") The only wrong note (for me), is the performance of Luis Alberini as the hotel owner; his brand of dialect humor gets tiresome--I'd just as soon it was left in the thirties for good.

When an expensive sable coat, thrown from a penthouse balcony by Wall Street tycoon J. B. Ball (Edward Arnold), lands on the head of office clerk Mary Smith (Jean Arthur) while she's riding to work on the top deck of a city bus, we're off on a fine screwball comedy that nails class assumptions to the wall. (The wall being a fabulous suite of the Hotel Louis.) Ball, known as the Bull of Broad Street, threw the coat to spite his extravagant wife. Although it was a mistake, as soon as word gets around that Mary Smith has a coat from J. B. Ball, it's not long before people begin to assume that Mary must be the Bull's mistress. And although she loses her job, almost instantly all those who want a piece of the Bull are falling over themselves to make Mary happy. She winds up in the Hotel Louis in a suite that could only have been dreamed up by Hollywood designers. Clothes and jewels are delivered; a car and chauffeur show up. Mary is mystified by all this, but happily accepts. When she meets a young man who works at the automat, well...we know, of course, that the young man is Johnnie Ball (Ray Milland), son of J. B. Ball, and that he earlier had stormed out of the family mansion determined to prove he could be his own man. It all gets sorted out, but only after a new Depression may get started fueled by more loony assumptions. Preston Sturges, who wrote the script, brings all the social satire and clever dialogue to Easy Living that he brought to the films he directed and wrote later. Mitchell Leisen, the director, gives the movie a sweet speed. The slapstick moments are like the whipped cream on top of the ice cream sundae. There is a food fight in the automat that is so witty and filled with pratfalls that it makes Animal House look like the work of...hmmm...juveniles. Jean Arthur and Edward Arnold take above-the-title billing, and they make a compelling set of screwball actors. That Arnold's J. B. Ball is irascible is putting it gently. Yet Arnold makes the tycoon funny and human, and there's no doubt that he really cares for that wife of his. Jean Arthur, of course, makes the movie work. What a one-of-a-kind actress she was, with that air of surprised innocence and that vaguely husky voice with the hint of a squeak now and then. It's worth remembering that Jean Arthur, who was born in 1900, paid her dues in more than 50 silent films, movies with titles like Biff Bang Buddy, Bigger and Better Blondes, and Twisted Triggers. She was 35 when she hit major stardom and stayed at the top through her last movie, Shane, in 1953. That innocent sexiness, acting skill, instant likability and that voice allowed her to consistently play 10 to 20 years younger than her age. For me, Jean Arthur at 53 and playing Marian Starrett, a woman probably 20 years younger, is the real center of Shane. She gives a deep reality to what all those homesteaders stand for. And she, without saying a word, is what motivates Ladd as Shane to do what he must do. In my opinion, Arthur gives the best performance in the movie. That's something you can say about almost every movie Jean Arthur was in. And let's not forget some fine character actors who help make Easy Living as funny as it is. Among them is Mary Nash as the Bull's wife, who really does love J. B. (as he does her). By the end of the movie we like them both a lot; Luis Alberni as Mr. Louis Louis of the Hotel Louis, who is energetically ethnic; Franklin Pangborn as Van Buren, the prissy (of course) proprietor of an exclusive hat shop; William Demarest as Wallace Whistling, gossip reporter; Esther Dale as the Bull's unimpressed and decidedly matronly secretary; and Robert Greig as Graves, the portly, imperturbable butler in the Ball household. They all have a chance to shine, and shine they do.