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Powerful

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Bennett's screen image was that of a sophisticated girl who knew how to take care of herself and get what she wanted. Her fans (wrote Griffith & Mayer) believed she would get out of traps that would hold them fast. Surprisingly then, in this film she's passive, unambitious and defeated at the ripe old age of 20 something. Makes me wonder what her benefactor, Menjou, saw in her that kept him interested for several years.The beginning scene in the tenement apartment is terrific, the crowded setting warm and cozy as the family members get ready to start the day. The entire cast is perfect. Gable is very watchable and it's easy to see he would soon be a star. Montgomery is charming and believable when he tells Bennett he knows about her and Menjou but he loves her and wants to marry her as long as there is no more dilly dallying with Menjou. Rambeau is especially good in the scene where she refuses to loan Bennett $100 (a lot of money in 1931), telling her to get off her high horse and do what Rambeau does to support herself. And the generous but not-the-marrying-kind Menjou is likable and his suits are beautifully cut and fitted.And Anita Page is excellent. A commenter asks what happened to Page's career. In 1930 Page was a star. In 1931 she was a supporting player. In 1933 her MGM contract was not renewed and she retired. Studio politics is what happened to the star who was second in popularity to Garbo.So there was another ending filmed but not used. My guess is that a despairing Bennett jumped onto the RR tracks, ala Anna Karenina, or teamed up with Rambeau as a I-hate-men gold digger.

Hard to believe, Constance Bennett, now only know to old film fans, was once, for a little while, not only the most popular actress in America but billed as the highest paid actress in the world!!! Constance was considered the epitome of chic, not quite as aristocratic as Norma Shearer or Ann Harding, but finding her own type as the poor shop girl, wooed by riches into a degrading lifestyle, but by the end of the movie finding strength to stand up for the decent things in life. In other words the "sin movie", which peaked in popularity in the early thirties. Having an abrasively honest personality didn't help her popularity and the depression weary public began to tire of her public extravagance (apparently in 1931 she spent $250,000 on a new wardrobe while most of the country battled the depression.) Nowadays "The Easiest Way" is remembered for being Clark Gable's first MGM feature but, in 1931, it was then one of the many popular Constance Bennett movies being rushed into the cinemas.Laura Murdock (Constance Bennett) longs to escape the poverty of tenement life. Her father is off work indefinitely, her mother (Clara Blandick) is a drudge and her sister Peg (Anita Page) is all set to marry self righteous Nick (Clark Gable) who operates a family laundry business, but Laura wants more. She works at the tie counter at the local department store but is whisked into the world of modeling and advertising by a talent scout. Enter the movie's villain - advertising executive, Will Brockton (Adolphe Menjou) who takes Laura under his wing. Laura takes to luxury like a duck to water but the only family member who is on her side is her free loading father (J. Farrell MacDonald), who is always coming to her for handouts!! Nick is not happy and tells her exactly what he thinks of her, the new dress she has given to Peg and the fancy car she rides around in.Posing as Brockton's secretary, Laura goes to the mountains and meets reporter Jack Madison (Robert Mongomery). They fall in love and while Jack knows all about her relationship with Brockton, he makes her promise to stop seeing him and return all his gifts. Jack goes to South America and Laura falls upon hard times - she is locked out of her apartment because she can't pay the rent and her mother dies because she has not been able to give her father the money for an operation. She goes to Brockton for a loan but ends up going back to him. Of course Jack comes back and Effie St. Clair (a just fantastic performance by Marjorie Rambeau) tells her to grab her happiness while she can. She was an elderly mistress who has been left destitute when her "sugar daddy" dies. Laura tries to - by lying about her circumstances but Jack sees through it and the film ends on Christmas Eve with Laura being taken in by Peg and a penitent Nick, and hoping that Jack will forgive her in the near future.It was hard to feel a lot of sympathy for Laura. There was not a lot of emotion in Constance Bennett's performance. I was expecting a showdown at the end but she was happy to try to sneak out with Jack and avoid a confrontation with Brockton, who with a few subtle clues ("you'll find my handerchiefs in the top draw") was able to fill Jack in. Whatever happened to Anita Page? She may have portrayed Clark Gable's first on screen love interest but it was pretty thankless, being very much a supporting part and not very glamorous. Considering she was so memorable in "Our Blushing Brides" only the year before - what happened??Highly Recommended.

Precode movies are always interesting because the plot lines were so cutting edge for their era and often still are for now. While the idea of a kept woman may seem quaint by today's morality, the deeper argument of men controlling a woman's life is still relevant today. A woman could/can use her beauty to gain quick and easy access to wealth. But when the beauty fades so may the access to wealth. Men controlled the jobs a woman could get, her access to society, and even her access to her own family. I was disappointed that the kept woman was so lazy about her circumstances. It took the older kept woman to wake her up to the reality of her situation. On the other hand there is the sister - who gets ahead the 'right' way. She starts out a tenement brat - and ends up a neat happy homemaker with an adorable kid & a good husband. It took time and hard work but she made the comfortable life eventually. There are other things that are worth looking at in this film - Advertising - once upon a time all print advertising was created by artists, with live models. Pencil & paint and cramping muscles. Poverty - Hot crowded tenements with thin, malnourished undereducated people. No privacy, no quiet, no prospects, no reason to play by the rules. Social Security - Once upon a time the old and tired were on their own. If they washed up at 65 with no money - and too tired and broke down to keep working - there was no safety net - just a cheap boarding house that locked you out when you missed the rent. When the prospects are dismal - who can blame a kid for taking the easy way out.

The shopgirl-turned-clotheshorse concept was a staple of 1920's a 30's films, with Joan Crawford wringing quite a bit of success out of the formula. Here, Bennett gives it a go in a story that was based on a 1909 stage play. She portrays the eldest of five children living with their parents in a squalid, cramped New York tenement. The father resists working while the mother barely manages to wrangle the kids and put supper on the table. Bennett toils behind the tie counter at a department store until one day she gets the opportunity to pose as a model for advertising artists. She doesn't stop with this modest success and proceeds to hook up with the boss (Menjou), who fixes her up with a fancy apartment and all the jewels and furs she can handle. During this, she aids her family as well, though a few of them reject her for the way she earns her keep. On an extended visit to Colorado, she happens upon handsome young writer Montgomery and quickly falls for him. She decides to give up her lavish "kept" lifestyle and return to work while he is away on assignment, knowing he will be back for her to marry him. But can she take that step backwards? Bennett, one of the highest paid and most popular stars of the era presents an appealing and attractive persona (check out that waist!) She knows that what she's doing is "wrong", yet circumstances seem to prevent her from doing otherwise unless she wants to exist in poverty. Menjou is assured and manipulative in his role. Montgomery is quite fresh and likable for the better part of his screen time. Page appears to great advantage as Bennett's far earthier sister who winds up wed to Gable in one of his very earliest roles. He's handsome though his character is a little self-righteous. Rambeau makes an impression as one of Bennett's sidekicks in the modeling biz who also reaches for the top in the mistress game. Virtually all of the cast members give vivid performances. The opening sequences in the rundown apartment are quite fascinating in their snappy dialogue and depiction of the hard times. Today's audiences will be able to see through the predictable plotting, but the film still holds interest. Though the Hays Office is sometimes blamed for tampering with the material, the 1917 silent version had at least as downbeat an ending as this one does. In fact, if the story were to end any other way than it does, there'd be very little point to it all!