Preston Sturges

[charliechaplinfan]

I watched Sullivans Travels so long ago but remember it well, well said Red, I would call it one of the great American movies for all reasons stated.

[CineMaven]

Right now, I think you are the most experienced of us all in Sturges, having sat up all night watching every one of them in a row.

Whoa Nellie! I don't know about the most experienced. I missed "Hail The Conquering Hero" except for the last twenty minutes. I will say for me, getting a dose of Sturges in one-fell swoop the other nite was invigorating.

I wish you had seen The Miracle of Morgan's Creek. I am most familiar with it, then The Palm Beach Story. Christmas in July is rapidly moving up my list. The more I think about it, the more I love that speech by Harry Hayden, Dick Powell's boss. Looks like I need a marathon of Sturges myself.

I've seen "Miracle..." before, but I need to have a recent sit-down with it to have it firmly ingrained on my DNA. What a raucous picture. Hutton was perfect.

So I am curious, was there one that really got you?

"SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS."

A personal favorite?

"THE LADY EVE."

Was there one that you didn't like so much?

"THE GREAT McGINTY."

Those are great questions Wendy; better than what was in my head. I think there's the letter of the law and then there's the spirit of the law. With movies, I mostly stay in the spirit. If I took things at face value, I basically wouldn't like classic films. Movies don't have to pass the letter of the law with me for me to like or dislike it. I go for what's underneath and base my opinions on that.

I like most kinds of comedies: the scatalogical kind, the cerebral kind, the drawing room kind, the bawdy kind, the serious kind. (I have a teensy bit of a problem with screwball comedy; a small speed bump). Watching Sturges in one fell swoop, I could see his messages underneath and how he laid out those messages with humor; sometimes caustic humor...sometimes gentle. Always incisive. And with Saturday's viewing I could see Sturges' philosophy play out in different ways. I really liked "Sullivan's Travels" b'cuz of the movie-maker aspect. All comics want to be taken seriously, all serious folks want to do comedy. ( "Interiors." ) Sullivan was like someone cursed by the gods in a Greek tragedy. No matter where he went, he wound up in the same place. ( That hobo on the train tracks...he really would have been better off not chasing the money. ) McCrea's Sullivan is like Dorothy, while Veronica Lake ( "Toto" ) made a lovely little peek-a-boo'd mascot. He has, what his purpose in his career is, all along. He didn't have to go looking for it. But I liked his search for the meaning of ( HIS ) Life. Sometimes people just want to laugh. And that is his gift.

My personal favorite is "The Lady Eve" b'cuz of Stanwyck and Fonda. You want a couple of pros...there you have it. Throw in Coburn and Demarest for insurance. Watch the smart girl outsmart herself. Tickle the Bible slightly for a little metaphoric Eve and the snake and the apple. I wasn't as crazy about "...McGinty" b'cuz it wasn't as funny to me. But this doesn't mean I didn't like it. I want to watch it again and crack the code. I loved his commentary on politics and a tiger changing his stripes.

I like words. I like play on words or a play on a situation. Sturges does that a lot. Take this for instance in "The Lady Eve": Stanwyck decides she's on the level about falling in love with Fonda. But her father still wants to fleece him. So now Stanwyck challenges her father to match wits as a cardshark and throws down the gauntlet. They're both con artists. So what does Charles Coburn tell the butler: "Children don't respect their parents anymore." I laughed out loud. He fleeces his soon-to-be son-in-law out of $32K. Stanwyck comes back to the table, and Coburn tears up the check 'cuz he was only kidding. (Yeah, right!) She gets Fonda outta there, quick...and then the waiter comes and gives Coburn the bill for dinner. Call me crazy...I'm laughing.

I agree that his casting is phenomenal, there is an easy, sexy rapport between his leads in pretty much every movie.

Definitely. The guys got the better end of the stick ( Drew, Raines, Stanwyck, Lake...though drawing McCrea or Fonda in the male lead sweepstakes ain't bad either. ) Powell and Drew just sitting on the roof in the moonlight with the familiarity of being friends and lovers, Colbert sitting on McCrea's lap to get her dress unzipped. Stanwyck calmly tousling Fonda's hair while raising his temperature. All sensuously subtle and gets the point across.

Marriage, politics, fidelity, warhero worship, pregnancy etc. Sturges makes me think of Hitchcock. They both take topics and subvert them. Sturges mocks things, gently bats 'em around like a cat with a ball of yarn. He puts things back together again, but you see the stitching. That's my inexpert shambles of an opinion of Preston Sturges...the modern day Aesop.

[ChiO]

A few tidbits from Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges: His Life in His Words (1990), an "autobiography" compiled by his wife, Sandy, that is worth seeking, on my favorite Sturges movie, THE PALM BEACH STORY:

On childhood train travel, domestic and foreign, with his mother --

How I loved the porters and dining car waiters. How kind they were to little boys. Mother always let me have the upper berth so I could peek out over the top or slide down inside the green curtain to visit her, then climb up again like a monkey. Years later I make a picture called The Palm Beach Story using just such sleeping car berths in a scene where Claudette Colbert steps on Rudy Vallee's face.

When we went two cars ahead to the dining car for dinner, Mother left her bag with our tickets and her checkbook in the compartment, taking with her what German money she had left, which was just about enough for dinner.

During the middle of this meal, a very pompous uniformed official came into the car and started bawling out some announcement which we neither understood nor paid much attention to. As he passed near our table, Mother asked him if he could get us a little more kartoffeln (potatoes). At this he looked very vexed and departed.

The train stopped somewhere after a while, but this did not interest us. Presently we finished our dinner and started back for our compartment, carrying the bones for the dogs and some bread for the birds. Our compartment, as I noted, was two cars to the rear, but after traversing one car, there wasn't any more train, just a long vista of tracks clickety-clacketing into the distance. The utter disbelief one feels in that situation was mirrored by Claudette Colbert years later in The Palm Beach Story, when she went back to the car carrying the Ale and Quail Club, only to find that it was no longer attached to the train.

On life with the wealthy --

The Palm Beach Story, incidentally, was conceived as an illustration of my theory of the aristocracy of beauty, or, as Claudette Colbert expressed it to Joel McCrea, "You have no idea what a long-legged gal can do without doing anything..." The setting was the Palm Beach I had known during the years when Paris Singer used to invite me to join him there. The few weeks I spent as Eleanor's house guest at Mar-a-Lago were not unuseful to the story either. Millionaires are funny.

One gets the sense that Ms. Colbert was the stand-in for Sturges.

[CineMaven]

Interesting ChiO. Good to know.

[JackFavell]

Wow! I had no idea that the missing train car actually happened to him!

[RedRiver]

I like words. I like play on words or a play on a situation.

You must love DOUBLE INDEMNITY!

[charliechaplinfan]

I love reading that excerpt ChiO, I had no idea it had actually happened to Sturges.

[JackFavell]

Maven, I just re-read your last post in this thread and was amazed at how insightful it was... "Sturges, modern day Aesop" or Sullivan's Travels as The Wizard of Oz.... watching two old pros like Fonda and Stanwyck knock each other for a loop, Sturges and Hitch... all your points were just brilliant! I really loved your post, and I probably didn't respond because there was nothing I could say in response, it hit every point so perfectly. Thanks for that, it gave me a lot to think about.

And speaking of posts on Sturges that give you something to think about, there is a new Morlocks post about The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (or Mad Wednesday) here:

http://moviemorlocks.com/2012/09/01/the ... old-lloyd/

And just in case you haven't seen The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, or like me haven't seen it in years, here it is on youtube, the same awful print just getting worse and worse every year.

[youtube][/youtube]

[CineMaven]

Wow Jaxxxx. I do appreciate that. Thank you very much!

[Konway]

Although I am not much into Preston Sturges, still I highly enjoyed his film "Unfaithfully yours." I think it is his best film. But this is just my opinion.

[JackFavell]

Personally, my favorite is Miracle of Morgan's Creek. I've never seen Unfaithfully Yours all the way through. I should try again.

[Konway]

First half hour is a bit slow. The interesting part of the film starts with Rex Harrison conducting the music in front of the audience. When you watch the film second time, you realize why the first half was slow. This is because Sturges wanted the audience to focus on the certain details in the film.

Jack Favell, I also send you a PM.

[RedRiver]

SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS is my favorite Sturges film, and one of the very best comedies of all. A superb piece of storytelling.

[Konway]

I heard that Preston Sturges had difficulty working with Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve. When Sturges worked with McCrea in Sullivan's Travels, Sturges loved working with McCrea. Sturges casted McCrea again in The Palm Beach Story and The Great Moment (which has been cut against wishes of Sturges).

[movieman1957]

I've seen "The Great Moment." Don't go in expecting another classic comedy. It's more a straight drama with some light moments in it. Did anyone not enjoy working with McCrea? He just seems the type to get along.