Free and Easy

Free and Easy (1930)

The laughs, life and loves of the Hollywood Studios in the novelty sensation of years!

Gopher City Kansas hosts a beauty contest. The winner, Elvira Plunkett, and her mother go to Hollywood. The Chamber of Commerce also provides Elvira with an agent, Gopher City's own Elmer J. Butz. Elmer likes Elvira and the shy Elvira likes him, but Mrs. Plunkett, a formidable woman, has little use for hapless Elmer. On the train west, they meet movie star Larry Mitchell, who takes a shine to Elvira and helps her meet MGM directors once they get to Tinsel Town. Elmer, meanwhile, wants to help Elvira with her career and he also wants to be her man. Movie stardom does come to the Gopher City entourage, but to whom is a surprise. And who will win the lovely Elvira's hand?

Date of release
1930-03-22
TMDB
6.1 / 10 (14)
Runtime
1h 32m
Genres
Comedy, Music
Director
Edward Sedgwick

Casting

Interesting facts

Free and Easy is a 1930 American pre-Code comedy film starring Buster Keaton. It was Keaton's first leading role in a talking motion picture.

Production

Free and Easy, whose working title was On the Set, was Buster Keaton's first starring role in a film shot for sound – he had appeared in MGM's talking The Hollywood Revue of 1929, but did not speak. As with Spite Marriage, his previous film for MGM, production on Free and Easy was largely out of Keaton's hands.

The film showcased MGM's stars and filmmakers, several of whom make cameos, including William Haines, Cecil B. DeMille, and Lionel Barrymore. The film was also shot in French, German, and Spanish versions. For the Spanish edition, titled Estrellados, Keaton spoke his dialogue phonetically while a new supporting cast spoke in their native Spanish language, but the 1931 release in France had French-language intertitles replacing the English dialogu…

MGM spent almost $500,000 on the production of Free and Easy. Keaton sings on the screen for the first time: an elaborate song-and-dance rendition of the title tune.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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