Easy Living

Plot synopsis:
Star professional quarterback Pete Wilson (Victor Mature) thinks nothing of his future after football, not even after longtime teammate Bill "Holly" Holloran (Gordon Jones) is released by the team. Pete gets advance after advance on his salary from Anne (Lucille Ball), the secretary of team owner and coach Lenahan (Lloyd Nolan).
One day, however, he goes secretly to see a doctor (Jim Backus) about various symptoms he has been experiencing and learns that he has a heart condition due to a childhood bout of rheumatic fever, one that could kill him if he continues playing football. He starts to tell his wife Liza (Lizabeth Scott), but changes his mind when she is cool to Holly, whom she describes as a has-been after he is gone.
Liza is struggling to make her own interior design business a success, and drags Pete to a fancy party to try to land Gilbert Vollmer as a client. Gilbert knows she has no talent, but is interested in her for other reasons. So is his father, Howard (Art Baker). The older man is looking to replace his young girlfriend, Billy Duane, and dangles before Liza the prospect of redecorating his apartment. Knowing what he is after, Liza is willing to do whatever it takes to further her ambitions.
Meanwhile, Pete is bitterly disappointed when his friend, retiring college head coach Virgil Ryan (Everett Glass), informs him that he cannot recommend him as his replacement because Liza is unsuitable for the duties of a coach's wife. Instead, the job is given to Pete's teammate and friend, Tim "Pappy" McCarr (Sonny Tufts). Tim offers Pete the position of his assistant, but Pete turns it down.
Afraid of physical contact, Pete turns in a very poor performance and loses the next game. Lenahan cannot afford another loss if he wants to make the playoffs (and earn $100,000), so he benches Pete in favor of Tim. Tim plays well, and they win their next game.
When Pete proposes taking the assistant coaching position, Liza breaks up with him. However, when she gets dumped by Howard, she tries unsuccessfully to get Pete back. Pete is given another chance at glory when Tim is injured, but ultimately tells his teammates about his condition and walks away from the game. Though Anne has made it clear that she loves him, Pete decides to take Liza back, making it clear, however, that it will be on his terms.

Tags: romantic

Review:
(But this was in an era of nickel pay-phone calls, when college football coaches made $3200 a year.)    The other story centers on the quarterback's troubled relationship with his ambitious, social-climbing wife who's not above using her seductive charm to make a success of her interior decorating business.
(This may have been due to the Production Code's dim view of divorce.) However, the cast still makes the movie worth a look, with solid work from Lucille Ball, Lloyd Nolan, Jim Backus, Art Baker, Jack Paar, etc.
Lizabeth Scott -- she of the spectacular eyebrows -- seems a tad "overheated" as the self-centered wife but the script probably forced this kind of performance.
Wilson also must break the news to his star-struck wife, who enjoys the spotlight even more than he does."Easy Living" is of course an ironic title.
Victor Mature, who played gladiators both ancient and modern, does his best but he isn't quite up to the emotional demands of the role.
The supporting cast, featuring Lloyd Nolan as the head coach and Lucille Ball as his son's widow, is generally stronger.
Jack Paar, in one of his rare film roles, pops up as the team's PR man.The film's climax, in which Wilson slaps his wife in desperation, could never be made today but still was acceptable in 1949.
Easy Living is not a light comedy, despite the presence of Lucille Ball, Jim Backus and Jack Paar.
Irwin Shaw wrote the novel on which it's based  the story of a man who's approaching midlife knowing nothing but how to play ball.
The movie version proves surprisingly textured and involving, which ought not to be surprising, as the director is the ever resourceful Jacques Tourneur.Victor Mature is a New York gridiron hero whose game is starting to slow down; in fact, he finds out he has a heart ailment which spells early death if he keeps on playing.
So in addition to his health and career crises, Mature faces a marital one as well.The large cast includes Lloyd Nolan as the club's owner and Lucille Ball as his widowed daughter-in-law, who works for the team and nurtures a crush on Mature.
Tourneur shows his craft in coaxing a subdued and touching performance from her; he surpasses that by drawing from Scott, especially in a self-pitying drunk scene, the only piece of real acting she ever committed to film.
Made near the peak of the noir cycle, which accounts for its minor-key tonality (the score, by the way, is by Roy Webb), it springs yet another surprise in being one of the first films to find a dark side in that American institution, professional football..
Sixty years later, however, the Charles Schnee script and Jaques Tourneur direction stand as a perceptive glimpse into pro-sports at the high end, as valid now as then and definitely ahead of its time.Star quarterback Victor Mature is a regular guy, but is drawn into the fast lane by ambitious wife Liz Scott.
On the other hand, good guy Sonny Tufts (in a tailor made part) and salt-of-the-earth wife Jeff Donnell represent the other side of Mature-- his down-to-earth side.
It's a whole little morality play summed up in a few seconds.Unfortunately the film shows its period with an unsatisfactory Hollywood ending consistent with the conventions of the day, and enough to make modern-day feminists apoplectic.
Unfortunately, these plans are put on hold when he tries to tell his selfish shrew of a wife (Lizabeth Scott) about this.
Lucille Ball plays a supporting role as a nice lady who deeply cares for Vic and is just waiting in case the marriage fizzles.
However, how all this marital discord is finally solved is amazing and could NEVER be done in films today, as Vic finally gets sick of Lizabeth's petulant ways and slaps her silly--saying to either shut up and stay or walk!!!
Part of it is because there are few films about pro football (especially when this one was made) and because as I watch the big climax scene between Victor Mature and Lizabeth Scott, I love to imagine the horror on many viewers faces as they see Vic slap his awful wife right in the face!
An interesting story and one of Mature's better films..
EASY LIVING takes you back to major league football circa 1949 and focuses on a star performer just before and after his career tops out.
The direction is first rate and all the actors deliver top performances --- particularly Victor Mature, Lizabeth Scott, Lloyd Nolan and Lucille Ball.
This Irwin Shaw drama doesn't have much football in it, but instead focuses on the lives of the people involved in sports.First seen in 1949 at age 11, I looked for it again at Video Vault.
Savvy sellers in eBay include RKO in their headline.Final comment: Unlike 2007's major hits like Pirates #3 and Potter #5, this film has an actual story, beginning, middle, end ---not relying on an overpowering musical score to sugarcoat junk.
Unfortunately, Easy Living runs like a stage play that is missing too many essential scenes, not just the beginning!.
Victor Mature, dour as always, is a pro football player.
That's an aside, having little to do with whether or not the movie works -- and I do think it does.Lloyd Nolan is excellent as the coach.
Easy Living is based on a story Education of the Heart by Irving Shaw, who was previously in 1942 nominated for the Academy Awards for co-writing the screen play of George Stevens' The Talk of the Town, and directed by Jacques Tourneur best remembered for his Horror and Film-Noir classics such as Cat People and Out of the Past.
Easy Living is basically a story of a struggle in life of Pete Wilson (played by Victor Mature).
His life is apparently settled, he is married to a beautiful woman Liza (Lizabeth Scott), owns a nice home etc., his future looks bright till the day when a serious heart ailment is discovered after a medical test which may result in fatal consequences in case Pete continues to play football.
All his world falls apart beginning with his marriage to Liza who now shows her real interests in marriage to Pete being the easy living provided with the money he earns as a football player, an occupation he is unable to continue anymore by obvious reasons.
Overall it's a weak drama in all of its aspects: the story, the acting and even directing from otherwise brilliant Jacques Tourneur.A very boring, though not very long (the duration of film being 77 minutes) viewing experience.
Everyone should note the circumstances under which Victor's character slapped his wife, and that he did it because he loved her and wanted to save their marriage..
Victor Mature and Lizabeth Scott are not two of my favorites, anyway, but I do think they were well-cast as the aging football player, Pete Wilson, and his selfish, social-climbing wife, Liza.
I also thought the Lucille Ball character was corny and clichéd: the "nice girl", albeit cynical and disillusioned, who loves Pete from afar -- sort of a poor man's Eve Arden.There was one scene that was a little gem, though, in my book.
Then she tells Pete that the guy "isn't a real man" because he can't play ball anymore.
It's a nice snapshot of Liza's character.All in all, watching Easy Living is like being served vanilla sherbet for dessert when what you really wanted was Rocky Road ice cream..
This is a short story about a football quarterback who finds he has heart trouble and will not be able to play again without great risk.
To be honest, it's a very forgettable movie despite the decent cast of Victor Mature, Lucille Ball, Lizabeth Scott, Lloyd Nolan and Paul Stewart.
The film was just kind of blah: it was watchable but not interesting enough for me to see it again, although maybe I would enjoy this more today knowing the actors better.
Then again, the throaty Scott playing a social-climbing wife is not worth seeing again.
When Sonny Tufts is the standout in a film, you know there's a problem.A caveat - I've never been crazy about Victor Mature.
Here at the age of 36 he plays Pete Wilson, a football player at the top of his game - MVP the previous year, the highest paid professional, and his future (at age 36, mind you) is unlimited.His wife Liza is portrayed by Lizabeth Scott.
She seems to be in it for the success, and she doesn't care for the guys on their way out.Pete's good friend Tim is retiring and going to be coaching at State.
A pro football player (Victor Mature) discovers his days as a pro athlete are numbered when he learns that he has a heart condition.
His wife (Lizabeth Scott) has ridden his fame as the face of the franchise up into the upper echelons of society and is unprepared to take on the role of a wife of an assistant coach for a college team since this is the best option left open to her husband given his condition.
Lizabeth Scott is perhaps the best reason for watching, as she's in one or two excellent scenes of parties put on and attended by the crowd she would like to join, though there are some telling moments on the field and in the locker room, especially when a veteran lineman gets cut from the team and has limited future prospects.
The film does well in portraying the lives and limited careers of pro football players, maybe better than later films have done.
King Football's Game Goes Bad. I'm sure someone can research and find earlier films on the subject, but Easy Living is the one that is the earliest I've come across having professional football as a background.
Victor Mature plays a football player whose game has gone bad because he's developed a heart murmur, but like a dope he doesn't tell anyone.Not that he couldn't live a nice normal life, but rough contact sports are definitely out.
Professional football was starting to come into its own post World War II and Mature has been given the nickname of 'King Football' by the press stimulated by his team's publicity agent, Jack Paar.Lizabeth Scott is one evil vixen and Mature has the widowed daughter-in- law of his coach Lloyd Nolan, Lucille Ball who would be a more suitable mate.
And today it would never be put in any film lest the National Organization for Women picket it.To its credit Easy Living has some good performances from Gordon Jones as another washed up teammate of Mature, Sonny Tufts as Mature's best friend, and Richard Erdman as the clubhouse man for the team.
He and teammate Woody Strode were the first to integrate pro football and both of course had successful acting careers, Strode a bit more so.Best performance to watch is that of Art Baker as the rich old goat who likes to collect beautiful women as trophies whether they have a ring or not.
***SPOILERS*** 1940's and 50's Hollywood hunk Victor Mature plays star football quarterback Peter Wilson of the New York Cheifs, who are actually played by the Los Anegles Rams, who at the height of his professional football career finds out from cardiologist Dr.Franklin, Jim Backes,that his ticker or heart is in danger of conking out at any given moment!
Keeping all this secret Pete continues to play football but his performance is anything then what it used to be with him avoiding physical contact at all costs.It's the Chief's coach Lenahan,Llyod Noland, who finally benches Pete due to his poor performance but it's his daughter and personal secretary Anne Lehahan Lucille Ball, who finds out what Pete's real problem is and tries to get him to quit football.
Pete's social climbing wife the sexy husky voiced Liza, Lizabeth Scott, who's self absorbed in her career as a interior designer.
It's looking for action Baker who's just stinging Liza along in helping her career in interior design until he uses her up and finds someone younger & better to replace Liza with!Victor Mature who's not really known for his acting, he once told a reporter that he can't act and stared in over 60 films to prove it, is really good as the fatalistic Pete Wilson who's literally playing his heart out on the football field knowing that any moment it would give out on him.
Pete also has to deal with his wife Liza whom he knows would drop him as soon as she finds out that his heart condition would end up making him a has been and put him as well as her out of the spotlight that she craves so much!***SPOILERS**** Very unconventional ending for a Hollywood movie with Pete finally letting the truth out about his serious heart condition to his both shocked coach and teammates and skipping the big championship game as well as ending his career as a professional football player.
We never get know how the game ended but we do know how Pete & his estranged wife Liza got back together again.
With Pete or Victor Mature in reviving his "Cave Man" role in "One Million B.C" knocking or slapping some sense into Liza's pretty head in having her drop her big ideas of becoming rich & famous by using him to get her there and just being his wife instead.
The wife of a washed up football player and now assistance coach for a non ivy league collage team and for better or for worse genuinely loving him!.
Jacques Tourneur directed this surprisingly effective tale of Victor Mature, a major league football player who is King of the Gridiron, until he finds he has a heart murmur that requires his retirement from active playing.
It would turn team owner Lloyd Nolan into a figure of frustration and disappointment because he's out to win the championship for the team this year.Mature is desperately in love with his wife, the ambitious Lizabeth Scott, whose boutique is supported by Mature's salary but who, herself, has little talent.
He seduces Scott and is brutally honest with her from beginning to end of the affair.There's another figure, and a woman too, who is in love with Mature.
Lucille Ball is the wisecracking secretary whom Mature dislike but who takes care of him when he needs caring for.With that kind of set up -- a man of moral principle, a wife who is a paragon of terpitude, and another upright woman who loves him from afar, the expectable outcome is expectable.
Mature does decide to not play the last vital game and perhaps die, but he slaps Scott in the face twice and their affection is strong enough that she is now willing to accompany him to that lowly position in the lowly university at the lowly salary.
Summing it up, one of the better movies about aging or otherwise-failing football players.
What's worse is that I'm certain the majority of viewers are not actually rooting for Victor Mature and Liz Scott to stick together in their marriage.
Football fans might enjoy this minor drama about a troubled professional player (Victor Mature) facing performance issues and a health crisis as he deals with new wife Lizabeth Scott's rise in the world of fashion.
Scott is glamorous and gets to wear some beautiful outfits, and along with Mature does her best to add some interesting dimensions to her character.
However, fans of Lucille Ball will be disappointed to see her wasted in a rather pathetically small role as the secretary to coach Lloyd Nolan, obviously in love with Mature but other than a few vivacious moments really has nothing substantial to do.
The film starts oddly with a scene between fellow player Sonny Tufts and his wife (Jeff Donnell) that does absolutely nothing to develop the plot or get it off the ground.
Australian release title: INTERFERENCE.SYNOPSIS: The domestic and career problems of a star football player.COMMENT: It's not hard to see parallels between this screenplay and Charles Schnee's later script for "The Bad and the Beautiful".
Professional football is the anything but easy living of the title.
When I saw Lucille Ball's name in the cast, I thought I would be in for a bit of comedy but how wrong I was!It's a basic story of a guy, a football player, on top along with his aggressive and ambitious wife.
Victor Mature and Lizabeth Scott appear as the perfect couple.
However, when Mature is diagnosed with a heart problem that would end his career, he cannot bring himself to tell his wife since she is now used to high living and not going to some college town as the wife of a football coach.As owner of the team, Lloyd Nolan is great here.
He wants victory and only at the end of the film does Mature let him know the story.
As his daughter-in-law, Lucille Ball comes across as the business-like secretary and is widowed and she has romantic designs on Mature.To me, a flaw in the film was the rapid southward movement of the Mature-Scott marriage.
I like a lot of things about this movie beginning with Irwin Shaw who wrote the short story (not novel as someone here said mistakenly) on which the screenplay was based, that screenplay itself, the work of Charles Schnee, the direction by Jacques Tourneur, and some, if not all, of the performances.
There was no more self-denigrating actor than Victor Mature but occasionally (Kiss of Death and here) he turned out a half-decent performance and here the delight is the people surrounding him, Lloyd Nolan, Paul (yeah, yeah) Stewart, Jim Backus, Art Baker, Jack Paar, it's a feast for minor-player buffs.
Lucille Balle pulls off a rare sympathetic role well enough and Lizbeth Scott who is easy to detest is suitably detestable as the ambitious wife of mature.