Laura rejects a marriage proposal from the boy-next-door to become involved with William Brockton a wealthy man many years her senior whom she met at a modeling job.

Even though he dismissed this by reminding officials that "a film like Sadie Thompson" could be released, he later abandoned the project, discussably [sic] because of censorship problems with the Hays Office.

[4] After Joseph M. Schenck & David O. Selznick and Universal Pictures briefly considered to work on an adaptation, one of the DeMilles picked up the project in March 1928, until a conversation with Will H. Hays motivated him to drop it.

In 1929, a producer named Sam E. Rork working for Fox considered making the film, but he was warned not to "undertake a thing which other responsible companies have already decided would not be good for the industry.

Columbia Pictures was offered by Hays Office to adapt the film on condition that they retitled it and that they bring the story into conformity with the Production Code shortly before MGM bought the rights, but they rejected it.

In November 1930, Irving Thalberg was set to produce, and he was contacted by the Hays Office, who complained that "the trouble with the adaptation is that it builds up audience sympathy for Laura Murdock and supplies her with the means of securing sympathetic excuses for, if not actual approval of, her weakness of character.

"[4] One other notable aspect of The Easiest Way is that Clark Gable's role as the affable, hard-working laundryman Nick was only the future "King of Hollywood's" second credited acting performance in a "talkie.

In The Easiest Way, Gable's good-natured character runs completely counter to the dark personality he portrays as Rance Brett, the rugged, villainous cowboy in The Painted Desert.

Yet, it was his "fan-favorite performance" as the outlaw Rance that made the greater impression on studio executives and subsequently earned Gable a contract with MGM.

It was titled Quand on est belle and starred Lili Damita in the part that Constance Bennett played in the English-language version.

Following its release, Columbia sent a complaint letter in which it accused the Hays Office of "unfairly preventing the studio from making the film, while allowing M-G-M to produce it."