Easy to Love

Quite amusing bedroom farce. As one character puts it: the evolution of marriage - first a double bed, then twin beds, then separate rooms. And so it is for wealthy society couple, John and Carol Townsend (played by Adolphe Menjou and Genevieve Tobin) who are involved in a sort of "love quadrangle". John is having an affair with Carol's best friend Charlotte (Mary Astor), John's best friend Eric (Edward Everett Horton), wealthy "Sardine King", is in love with Carol. When Carol can't get her hubby into bed anymore, she concludes he has no energy from "playing too much polo" (his excuse for his daily afternoon tryst) - but finding out he has NOT been playing polo, she hires a detective who quickly gets the dope on the secret love affair. Now Carol uses Eric to "get even" with her hubby, by pretending to have her own affair!

This lively romp is loads of fun with lots of snappy pre-code dialogue, husband hiding in closets, wife trying to win her man back via negligees and the old "dropping the soap on the floor" bathtub trick, plus all-knowing valet and butler, and women in slinky dresses and fur collars. I liked Edward Everett Horton in this, playing pretty much the exact same guy he always plays, plus Guy Kibbee is very amusing in a small, but memorable part, as the Justice of the Peace. Fast-paced and enjoyable film.

A racy pre-Code comedy with a superb cast. Adolph Menjou and top-billed Genevieve Tobin are bored with their marriage. Menjou is stepping out with Mary Astor. (And who wouldn't? Tobin is a charming actress. But Astor is divine here. Her comic timing presages her performance in "The Palm beach Story." Less plausibly, Tobin is having a romance with -- ready? -- Edward Everett Horton. He was a delightful comic character actor. But the type to make a husband jealous? It's hard to imagine.

Charming Patricia Ellis is Tobin and Menjou's daughter. Her boyfriend is played by attractive Paul Kaye -- a name I'd never heard before watching this.

Hugh Herbert turns up as a private detective with a Scottish burr. His name is McTavish, and like everyone in this charming but not awfully original movie, he's very good.

"Easy To Love" is essentially a filmed stage play which is saved by its cast. I was hoping it would get funnier or turn out better as it went on but what was needed here was a more subtle, sophisticated hand, someone with something resembling a 'Lubitsch touch'. The result was a ham-handed comedy which was too obvious as far as innuendo and plot development are concerned.

The cast did their considerable best, with Edward Everett Horton in one of his patented dithering simpleton roles carrying most of the comedic load, and aided and abetted by Adolph Menjou and Mary Astor. But by and large, the picture belonged to Genevieve Tobin, director Keighley's wife. Primarily a stage actress, she was in her element as Menjou's triangulated wife.

"Easy To Love" could have been better but is worth a watch as is. I think I am in the minority on this one. I was disappointed but perhaps I was expecting too much.

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.

Genevieve Tobin is happily married to Adolph Menjou, but is happily carrying on an affair with Edward Everett Horton, who is married to Mary Astor, who enjoys Menjou as her other man. When the menage's daughter, Patricia Ellis, falls in love, everyone is very suspicious.

This was released in January of 1934, so it's still pre-code, but it's all so arch and precious that there's no reason to take any of the underpinnings of the situation seriously. This hurts the arch comedy, and were it not for the topnotch cast, it would be very dull indeed. Fortunately, the cast is that good.