"EASY LIVING"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23341, 5 November 1937, Page 7

"EASY LIVING"

COMEDY AT REGENT Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold and Ray Milland are the featured players in the new comedy, " Easy Living," which will have its initial screenings at the Regent Theatre to-day. Strongly reminiscent of " Mr Deeds Goes To Town" and "It Happened One Night" in its gaiety and lighthearted humour, "Easy Living" is another of those sophisticated, slightly bantering comedies which are now enjoying such great popularity. Its story is refreshingly new, its settings are lavish, and it moves at a nice pace, for all of which high praise is due to the cast, the author and the director (Mitchell Leisen) The story concerns a stenographer, played by Miss Arthur, who unexpectedly gets a sable coat valued at 50,000 dollars, and then has to live up to it. Like the man in the Mark Twain story who found he didn't have to have any money as long as he had a cheque for a million pounds, Miss Arthur finds the town wide open to her. Hotels, fashionable shops and dealers in expensive cars shower her with gifts. She becomes the talk of the town. All doors are open to her. There is only one drawback —she has not got the money with which to buy herself a meal. She goes to an automat and tries to steal a meal and meets Ray Milland, a millionaire playboy who is trying to make good on his own account. Actually he is the son of the man who threw the sable coat out of a window, and with whom Miss Arthur's name becomes linked as an aftermath. It is love at first sight. The rest of the story is a fast-moving account of how Miss Arthur's coat caused a Wr.ll street crisis, brought together a man and wife who were on the verge of parting, saved a hotel from bankruptcy and found Miss Arthur a husband. It is all grand fun and should not be missed.