Chock Full O' Nuts: Preston Sturges and Easy Living

Steyn Online ^ | 9 Oct 2021 | Rick McGinnis

[Rummyfan]

Preston Sturges was one of Hollywood's most successful screenwriters when Easy Living was released in 1937, and even if he didn't direct the picture – in spite of his constant pleas to be allowed to make his own film – it has the makings of a Sturges movie from the first pratfall, which would be Edward Arnold's tumble down the staircase of his mansion. Arnold plays J.B. Ball – the third-richest banker in America, the "Bull of Broad Street" – but he's the sort of millionaire who commands no respect from his staff, his wife or his son: a perfect Sturges plutocrat, given to displays of conspicuous parsimony, a gilded lump of clay set up to be knocked about, like everyone else in his world.

Ball begins his day by arguing with his listless son John Jr. (Ray Milland), who storms out of the house declaring his intention to make his own way in the world without his father's money. Things get even better when he finds the bill for his wife's latest fur coat; their raging argument – loaded with more pratfalls – takes them to the roof of their Park Avenue home, where Ball throws the fur off the roof.

It lands in the open top of a double decker bus, crushing the feather on the hat of a young woman on her way to work. Mary (Jean Arthur) is the sort of person who will get off the bus and try to find the owner of the fur, which sets up the film's moral dynamic even before she tries to return it to Ball. Like any capricious rich man who only seconds before was brawling with his chef over using lard instead of butter, he insists that Mary not only keep the coat...

[Rummyfan]

Preston Sturges was a true original. The Great McGinty, for instance, was decades ahead of its time.