Easy Living with Jean Arthur, Veronica Mars

Jean Arthur as Mary Smith in "Easy Living" (1937) delivers her lines with aplomb — something quite amazing given how insecure she was as an actress. Like Cary Grant, her high level of insecurity is in contrast with the high degree of confidence that comes through in her on screen performances. Arthur was feisty, independent, insecure and had fragile physical and emotional health. She was a bundle of contradictions but perhaps it’s the conflict of all those contradictions that made her so good on screen.

Arthur’s timing is dead on in Easy Living and much of what is really funny and holds an audiences’ attention resides in that. There is, for example, the scene where she and an extraordinarily youthful Ray Milland go to sleep together then… one of Arthur’s eyes opens. Then, she sits up. As the short sequence plays, you see every thought cross her face as it is thought. Easy Living is a wonderful comedy, one that is founded on one of Jean Arthur’s best performances and the pervasive Preston Sturges influence.

It mixes slapstick, romance and even another subtle Sturges touch, social awareness — the vacuous, self-absorbed rich and the hard-working, decent poor. Source: piddleville.com


J.B. Ball (Edward Arnold), a rich financier, gets fed up with his free-spending family. He takes his wife's just-bought (very expensive) sable coat and throws it out the window, it lands on poor hard-working girl Mary Smith (Jean Arthur). Mary meets an automat busboy named Johnny (Ray Milland), the two who end up falling for each other. Mary does not know Johnny is John Ball Jr., the well-to-do son of the man who gave her the coat and hat, and Johnny does not know Mary's loose connection to his wealthy father.

"Veronica Mars" (2014) directed by Rob Thomas - Review: Kristen Bell is flat-out terrific, mixing spunk, smarts and sex in a way that brings to mind the leading ladies of Hollywood's golden age. There aren't a lot of people working today who merit comparison to the likes of Jean Arthur and Rosalind Russell, but Bell's working on that level here. The ensemble cast is generally fast and funny, zipping through the script's clever repartee, and even “Mars” newcomers will find themselves welcome in their company, even if we don't always know who's an ally and who's secretly a murderer. Source: www.thewrap.com