Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – MGM – 1931: THE EASIEST WAY & THE CHAMP

For this MGM 1931 episode we watched The Easiest Way, a feminist subversion of melodrama tropes by director Jack Conway and screenwriter Edith Ellis, starring Constance Bennett as the fallen woman and a young Clark Gable, verging on stardom, as her judgemental brother-in-law; and possibly the most sentimental movie ever made, King Vidor's The Champ, starring Wallace Beery as a ne'er-do-well ex-boxing champ dad and Jackie Cooper as his passionately devoted son. MGM delivers again in this new round of 1931! Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: The Easiest Way (1931) [dir. Jack Conway] 0h 43m 55s: The Champ (1931) [dir. King Vidor] +++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The MGM Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler Additional 1930 information from: Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer              +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at [email protected]   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!