‘Easy Living’ or — Love, Money and, Er… Anal Sex?!
Sometimes fate lands in your lap. Other times it hits you in the face like a fur coat thrown off a skyscraper. The latter happens to Mary Smith (Jean Arthur), specifically on the top deck of a double-decker bus on her way to work, breaking her hat in the process.
She returns the hat-breaking fur to its owner (or, more precisely, its tosser — it was his wife’s coat), a Mr J.B. Ball (Edward Arnold). Mr Ball is America’s third richest banker and so buys Mary a new hat. However, Mary doesn’t know Mr Ball is Mr Ball but everybody else knows Mr Ball is Mr Ball so when Mr Ball is seen buying a new hat for a pretty young woman in an expensive fur coat the rumours, like the fur, begin to fly.
The whole city now thinks Mary is Mr Ball’s squeeze. Mr Ball is powerful. Mr Ball can create lives. Mr Ball can destroy lives. So when Louis Louis from the Hotel Louis discovers Mr Ball’s bank might close down his establishment he tracks Mary down, who has now been fired from her job because how the hell can she afford a fur coat on her wage, and offers her full use of the Imperial Suite at his hotel for as long as she wants free of charge. His logic? Mr Ball would never close down a hotel is lover was staying at, would he?
The more people think Mary loves Mr Ball the more she is showered with ingratiating luxuries and gifts from various boutiques and companies wanting to curry Mr Ball’s favour. Mary’s broke so she not complaining. She’s baffled but she’s not complaining. Besides, she can’t be in love with Mr Ball if she doesn’t know who Mr Ball is. Sure, she’s in love with Mr Ball (Ray Milland) but that’s Mr Ball’s son who she met in a cafe and is attempting to make it on his own without hand-outs from his father, Mr Ball, but Mary doesn’t know that he is Mr Ball or that Mr Ball is Mr Ball and that Mr Ball is Mr Ball’s son.
How long will Mary enjoy this easy, if confusing, living? How unfeasibly massive is Louis Louis’ Hotel Louis? Oh well, it’s not as though one woman staying in a hotel because a coat’s been thrown at her can cause much chaos… right?
‘Easy Living’ was written by Preston Sturges and boy, does it show as this film blasts along at a dizzying pace and all revolving around the usual Sturges’ quirks — money, sex and the innate chaotic potential of systems, contraptions and dogs. The script is intensely funny, tightly constructed and perfectly balanced throughout. Although a lot of this could also be down to the directing and editing, which are both exceptional. Mitchell Leisen directs, bringing a bucket load of visual style, panache and elegance to everything and even though he keeps the energy levels high there’s always a sense of steady control (would it be sacrilege to suggest ‘Easy Living’ might not’ve been as good if Sturges was behind the camera as well as the typewriter?).
The performances are great with Arthur and Milland making a cute and non-cloying couple although the real story is between Arthur and Arnold as it is this relationship which keeps everything moving along. Yet my favourite character is Louis Louis from the Hotel Louis. He gets some of the film’s funniest scenes and Luis Alberni plays him to perfection.
‘Easy Living’ is absolutely wonderful and incredibly funny. It also never runs out of steam, possibly because this isn’t quite a love story. There’s love here for sure but it’s love caught up in an escalating mess. It’s more a view of Wall Street from Sturge’s ivory tower with a little naughtiness thrown in. And phones. Sturges seems to have a thing about telephones so there’s a lot of phone action here. Oh, and assholes. Be prepared to see a lot of bottoms being thrust in your face along with what is, I suspect, the world’s largest bidet (well, what do YOU think it’s for washing?).
And the anal sex? Oh, trust me, it’s there. I won’t spoil the gag but notice when Arthur and Milland are obviously about to have sex, Arthur giving a wide-eyed look of delightful surprise when she realises what’s going to happen. But it’s the shot after it cuts to black that allows Sturges and Leisen to fit an anal sex reference in through the back door with one of the most beautifully timed, and extraordinarily naughty, newspaper headlines that blasts up on the screen straight afterwards. Wow. I mean, just wow. I’m not going to ask how the hell they got away with it because it’s so explicit I don’t think they did. It’s as obvious as a fur coat being flung in your face.
