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Easy Living


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🎙️ EPISODE 452: 04.25.22

Hello, 1930s Cinema! Today's episode of the program marks the 600th film reviewed here at MovieJeff.com and it's a first. Unseating the Abbott & Costello vehicle One Night in the Tropics (1940), it becomes the leader in the clubhouse / mantle holder for oldest movie I've reviewed/seen yet. And much to my surprise it was incredibly watchable if not legitimately downright enjoyable. This is all in large part to Preston Sturges "took the screwball comedy format of the 1930s to another level, writing dialogue that, heard today, is often surprisingly naturalistic, mature, and ahead of its time, despite the farcical situations." And yeah I lifted the sentence from Wikipedia, but damn if I wasn't thinking the same thing. This film shines in the tiny moments in between the lunacy of its pratfalls and goofs...
...and in its incredibly charming quirks, like this scene where Jean Arthur blindfolds her piggy bank before smashing it...


But a screwball comedy didn't get its name for nothing, and when two of our leads get caught stealing food at the Automat, well all hell breaks loose in the most delightful way...


There is a true art to that. I don't care what anyone says. Falling down and dropping things are just fucking funny and movies need to bring this ethos back dammit! And if you're wondering how they got caught, check out this 1930s era periscope-style surveillance system lol...


Maybe I'm outting myself as a pretty dumb guy for liking this as much as I did (it certainly drags in final act which is cultivated around a pretty stupid stock markey gag), but I don't give a shit at this point. Stuff like this is funny to me...


SUE ME!

CHRONOLOGICALLY
EPISODE 451 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 453A ⫸

Easy Living is a 1937 American screwball comedy film, directed by Mitchell Leisen, written by Preston Sturges from a story by Vera Caspary, and starring Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold, and Ray Milland. Many of the supporting players (William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn, Luis Alberni, Robert Greig, Olaf Hytten, and Arthur Hoyt) became a major part of Sturges' regular stock company of character actors in his subsequent films. It was released on July 16, 1937.

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