Easy to Love

This is a gem of a comedy--very much like a Lubitsch bedroom farce, only with a brisker running time, a lower budget, and some of that early '30s Warners snappiness added in.

Menjou is a great farceur, playing the husband who cheats but is aghast that his wife would consider doing the same. Horton is--well, Horton: the unique dithery fussbudget he always played. Mary Astor shows her gift for comedy here (almost a decade before "The Palm Beach Story") and Genevieve Tobin is a delight. So, too, is young Patricia Ellis--only 18 at the time of the filming but showing great poise. Robert Grieg, also a favorite of Preston Sturges' and known to Marx Brothers fans for his prominent role in "Animal Crackers," steals many a scene as the all-knowing butler. But the film is *really* stolen by Guy Kibbee as the justice of the peace, who only shows up in the last ten minutes but essentially walks off with the whole movie.

Thank goodness for Turner Classic Movies, and for its programmers who run obscure films like this which are so delightful. This film may be from 1934, but it hasn't dated a bit; its wry look at the craziness of love is still relevant.