Easy to Love is a 1933 film directed by William Keighley.
Carol and John Townshend are a wealthy married couple with a 17-year-old daughter, Janet. Carol (Genevieve Tobin) is feeling neglected—sexually neglected that is, as the Townshends have been sleeping in separate bedrooms of late and John seems no longer interested in sleeping with his very hot wife. What Carol doesn't know is that the reason why John isn't interested in his wife because he's routinely meeting Carol's good friend Charlotte (Mary Astor) every afternoon for sex.
Carol eventually gets suspicious, hires a private detective, and confirms that her husband is cheating on her. Because this is a 1933 film and not real life, Carol decides to win back John's affections. She enlists as an unwitting tool in this scheme John's business partner Eric, who desperately wants to sleep with her.
Tropes:
- All Women Are Lustful: Both Carol and Charlotte are horny. Carol is upset early in the film when an attempt to seduce John fails. For that matter, young Janet obviously would like to get with her handsome beau Paul, but feels she has to get married first.
- Bathtub Scene: The most pre-Code scene in this movie. Carol takes a bath right in front of John, with the camera angled in such a way that the rim of the tub just barely hides her breasts. Then she deliberately drops the soap and asks John to pick it up and hand it to her, so that he's forced to get a look at her naked.
- Calling Me a Logarithm: After believing that they have caught Janet and her boyfriend in a hotel together, Carol and John summon a judge to get their daughter immediately married. When the judge says that Janet was caught "in flagrante delicto", Eric says "Nothing of the kind, right here in this city."
- Comedy of Remarriage: They aren't actually divorced, but Carol and John have become sort of roommates. Carol wages a campaign to win John back.
- Conversation Cut: Carol has asked Eric to meet her. Eric is excited because he incorrectly thinks that Carol is finally going to let him have sex with her. Eric, who keeps a parrot, says to the parrot "Polly, I never dreamed—", cut to him in the back of a taxi with Carol saying "—that the time would ever come...."
- Dramatic Irony: Janet tells her mom that she is holding out for a marriage "just as perfect as you and Father's marriage." This is long after the audience knows that John is cheating on his wife every day.
- Ethnic Menial Labor: Eric has a Japanese valet named Miki.
- Everybody Smokes: Carol's doctor offers her a cigarette when she comes into his office. (She's asking about John's mysteriously disappearing libido.)
- Hypocrite: John, who has a regular daily 2:30 appointment for sex with his mistress, is infuriated when he incorrectly believes that Carol is cheating on him. When she calls him out on this he blusters that infidelity just happens with men but is a huge deal when wives do it.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Eric, who still thinks he has a chance of getting with Carol, is unhappy to see that the door between her bedroom and John's is unlocked. Carol says "Why he never comes in here, might as well be a stone wall!" Naturally the door instantly opens as John charges into the room.
- Leg Focus: Carol ups the ante in a Lingerie Scene where she's trying to seduce John, dramatically sticking a leg out and peeling off a stocking as he stares.
- Lingerie Scene: Multiple scenes where lovely Carol wears only a slip when trying to seduce John.
- Love Dodecahedron: There's Carol and John, John's mistress Charlotte, and John's partner Eric who desperately wants to get into Carol's pants.
- Operation: Jealousy: After discovering that her husband is cheating on her, Carol tricks John into thinking that she is having an affair with Eric, as part of her strategy to win him back.
- Sexy Backless Outfit: Carol and Charlotte both wear these for the dinner party that winds up never happening, as Carol finally directly confronts John and Charlotte about their affair.
- Sleeping Single: Being that this is a film from The Pre-Code Era, this trope was not yet enforced. Here it is a signal that Carol and John haven't been having sex for a while.Carol: First a double bed, then twin beds, then separate rooms.
- Smithical Marriage: Carol and John, horrified after finding out that Janet and Paul have gone off together, track them to a hotel. They ask to see the guest register. All of the guests are couples, all of whom have registered under "Smith."
- Something Else Also Rises: As Charlotte in a negligee nestles up against John on a couch, he ostentatiously smokes a long, quite phallic cigar.
- Video Credits: Of all the main players at the start of the film, which was Warner Brothers house style in this era.
