Rent Easy Living (1937)

Screwball comedy. - Easy Living review by Steve

Mitchell Leisen's screwball comedy reflects on the economic realities of the depression. A Wall Street banker (Edward Arnold) is so enraged by his family's profligacy that he throws his wife's new mink coat over the balcony of his Manhattan penthouse. It lands on working girl (Jean Arthur) on her way to the office, knocking her out of the orbit of her ordinary struggles.

 She is sacked for the moral improprieties she is presumed guilty of to get the coat. But because she is judged to be the mistress of the third richest man in America, luxury traders lavish her with valuables when they draw the same conclusion. By chance (!) Arthur ends up giving a roof to the slumming son of the banker. (Ray Milland) in her penthouse suite.

Arthur is really very good as a bewildered working stiff carried far away by the tide of fate. Her hunger in the early scenes is palpable. She never feels fake and eclipses the faintly drawn support characters. Preston Sturges' script allows her to experience both sides of the depression.

There's a remarkable scene in an automated restaurant. The unemployed protagonist can't afford even these prices. A man washes in a glass of water. And we wonder how such extremes of wealth can co-exist. The banker treats everyone in his kingdom with contempt. The politics is woven into a charming and entertaining farce. But in Hollywood terms, this is quite subversive.