This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Breezy Giving
Plot Overview
Wall Street tycoon J.B. “The Bull of Broad St.” Ball (Edward Arnold) has got up (“Good morning, sir”) on the wrong side of the bed this morning. He castigates his son Johnny Jr. (Ray Milland) for selling a paid-for American car to buy a foreign job on time. He balks at an $18 maintenance expense from Hedley Hardware Co. What really gets his goat, though, is his wife Jenny (Mary Nash) adding a $58,000 Kolinsky sable coat to her burgeoning collection (“Well, you want me to look nice, don't you?”) Unable to return it (“Mr. Zickel won't take it back”), Mr. Ball in frustration chucks it off the roof of their 5th Street penthouse.
As fate would have it (“Kismet”)
it floats down on top of a nearly penniless Mary Smith (Jean Arthur)
on her way to work at The Boys' Constant Companion magazine.
She does the right thing trying to find its owner. Mr. Ball does
the right thing taking her to an exclusive hat store to replace her
chapeau whose feather had broken. She takes Mr. Ball's cavalier
attitude toward this gifted coat of unknown worth at face value not
realizing its family feud background. The biddies at work recognize
it as expensive and the boss fires her for violating “the ethical
requirements” of their boys' mag.
The hat store owner brags about his big shot customer to his friend
the hotelier Mr. Louis Louis (Luis Alberni) who in turn tracks
her down thinking she's “the girlfriend of our 1st, 2nd & 3rd mortgage” holder. He gives her (“I
think you got the wrong Smith”) a rock bottom price to stay
in his extravagant hotel in hopes of boosting business. New York high
society after hearing about this confidential guest, flock there as
a herd. Somehow she connects up with Johnny Jr. whose
off-the-cuff stock advice gets passed on to investors who think it's
the real deal coming from the senior Ball. A second Great Depression is
about to erupt unless the parties can straighten themselves out.
Everybody is either doing the right thing or acting in his own self-interest or just being naïve. It's an unmitigated disaster, and the food fight's not even the worst of it.
Ideology
In another movie “My Concubine” some funny business has been going on at a dance school. When the mother and brother of the protégée come visit her, they won't accept that the teacher had lavished her with expensive gifts out of friendship alone. As Van Buren (Franklin Pangborn), the prissy proprietor of the hat shop in “Easy Living,” puts it, “Wherever there's smoke, there must be … somebody smoking.” However, none of that had been going on here; the coat was merely a generous gift. For insight consider this admonition, (Eccl. 7:16) “Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself?” For his over-generosity The Bull's marriage was jeopardized. Furthermore, counting himself more wise than was good for him, he was about to lose his shirt on a market that was going into a tailspin. A better option would have been to auction off the coat and donate the proceeds to charity.
Consider also that, (Prov. 18:7) “A fool's mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul.” Mr. Ball's own big mouth played its part in landing him in trouble.
Nor did the gossipy community help matters any. (Prov. 18:8) “The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.” Van Buren confides to newspaper reporter Wallace Whistling (William Demarest) that he saw: “The bull of broad street … with a girl … in the sable-est sable coat they ever sabled!”
And then there was the family conflict, Ball's son not working and his wife spending money like it's going out of style. (Prov. 18:9) “He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster.”
The Wisdom of Sirach, in the Apocrypha, accepted by Protestants for edification purposes, summarizes what happened to some of the others. (Sirach 11:11–13) “There is one that laboureth, and taketh pains, and maketh haste, and is so much the more behind. Again, there is another that is slow, and hath need of help, wanting ability, and full of poverty; yet the eye of the Lord looked upon him for good, and set him up from his low estate, and lifted up his head from misery; so that many that saw it marveled at him.” The zealous hotelier Mr. Louis made a bad business decision to build a luxury hotel at the beginning of the Great Depression, but he put everything he had into that flop. A nobody Mary Smith had the most limited of prospects, yet fate made her rich.
(Sirach 11:21) “Marvel not at the works of sinners; but trust in the Lord, and abide in thy labour: for it is an easy thing in the sight of the Lord on the sudden to make a poor man rich.” It was a cinch to elevate her.
(Sirach 11:29) “Bring not every man into thine house: for the deceitful man hath many trains.” It was perhaps a mistake to receive stock investment adviser E.F. Hulgar (Andrew Tombes) at the door as the financial advice he wheedled out of her got spread far and wide.
Production Values
This screwball comedy, “Easy Living” (1937) was written by Preston Sturges, based on a story by Vera Caspary. It was directed by Mitchell Leisen. It stars Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold, and Ray Milland. Jean Arthur proves a splendid comedienne. She has great chemistry with Ray Milland. Ray Milland is cast to perfection as someone a soupçon debonair, a skosh too bourgeois, but ultimately a real charmer. The entire cast is impressive.
This movie predates our rating system but it secured a United States TV rating of TV–PG. There is a sleepover scene in it so innocent it survived the censors. The leading lady had a distinctive voice and a charm all her own, bearing down with scatterbrained, artless patter. In real life she was an insecure actress. The director made up the automat scene cum food fight; it wasn't in the script.
Review Conclusion w/ Christian Recommendation
This was a delightful little comedy, a not-to-be-missed classic. It completely avoids any hint of class struggle as it succeeds in tickling our funny bone. It follows a magic formula we wish we'd see more of.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Well done action scene. Special effects: Average special effects. Suitability for children: Suitable for children with guidance. Video Occasion: Good Date Movie. Suspense: A few suspenseful moments. Overall product rating: Five stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quoted from the Authorized Version. Pub. 1611. Rev. 1769. Software.
Apocryphal scripture taken from The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English. U.S.A.: Hendrickson Pub. Originally published by Samuel Bagster & Sons, Ltd., London, 1851. Print, WEB.
bibles.n7nz.org