Preston Sturges

  • Preston Sturges – Unfaithfully Yours (1948)

    1941-1950ComedyPreston SturgesRomanceScrewball ComedyUSA

    Quote:
    A brilliant black comedy by Preston Sturges, developed from a script he had written as early as 1932 and tried in vain to get Fox, Universal and Paramount intrested in producing. The script’s early provinence must be the reason that it’s the only one of his four post-Paramount pictures to feature dialogue comparable to (and sometimes surpassing) that found in the eight great comedies he wrote and directed in 1940–44, as well as numerous comedies that he had scripted in 1930s. The studios’ reluctance to make the film at that time is indicative of why it became a critical and a box office failure: the morbid subject matter, combined with the recent suicide of actress Carole Landis (who was suspected of having an affair with Rex Harrison, who plays the lead here), simply drove audiences away from it and for decades gave it a reputation of a film maudit.Read More »

  • Preston Sturges – Les carnets du Major Thompson AKA The French, They Are a Funny Race (1955)

    1951-1960ComedyCultFrancePreston Sturges

    IMDB:
    Major Thompson, an Englishman living in France, comments in his memoirs on the peculiarities of his French wife and friends.Read More »

  • Preston Sturges – The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947)

    1941-1950ComedyFantasyPreston SturgesScrewball ComedyUSA

    Also known as Mad Wednesday, this collaboration between silent comedy star Harold Lloyd and screwball comedy genius Preston Sturges was meant to be a splashy comeback for both. Unfortunately, it sank at the box office.

    The film starts with original footage from Lloyd’s 1925 classic The Freshman. Because of his success on the football field, Harold Diddlebock (Lloyd, who seems to have hardly changed in 22 years, – still sporting a straw hat, and horn rimmed glasses) is offered a job. Full of hope and promise, the former gridiron champ finds himself in a minor bookkeeping position, where he remains forgotten for the next 22 years, until he’s abruptly fired.Read More »

  • Preston Sturges – Christmas in July (1940)

    1931-1940ClassicsComedyPreston SturgesScrewball ComedyUSA

    A workplace practical joke goes awry when an office clerk (Dick Powell), believing he has won a $25,000 prize, takes his girlfriend (Ellen Drew) on an extravagant Christmas shopping spree…in the middle of July! When the truth comes out, he’s not prepared for the consequences.Read More »

  • Preston Sturges – The Lady Eve [+Extras] (1941)

    1941-1950ComedyPreston SturgesRomanceScrewball ComedyUSA

    Criterion wrote:
    Barbara Stanwyck sizzles, Henry Fonda bumbles, and Preston Sturges runs riot in one of the all-time great screwballs, a pitch-perfect blend of comic zing and swoonworthy romance. Aboard a cruise liner sailing up the coast of South America, Stanwyck’s conniving card sharp sets her sights on Fonda’s nerdy snake researcher, who happens to be the heir to a brewery fortune. But when the con artist falls for her mark, her grift becomes a game of hearts—and she is determined to win it all. One in a string of matchless comedic marvels that Sturges wrote, directed, and produced as part of a dazzling 1940s run, this gender-flipped battle-of-wits farce is perhaps his most emotionally satisfying work, tempering its sparkling wit with a streak of tender poignancy supplied by the sensational Stanwyck at her peak.Read More »

  • Preston Sturges – The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944)

    1941-1950ClassicsComedyPreston SturgesScrewball ComedyUSA

    Plot:
    One of Paramount’s funniest films of the forties is this Preston Sturges screwball classic staring Betty Hutton (The Greatest Show on Earth) and Eddie Bracken (Hail the Conquering Hero.) Hutton is Trudy Kockenlocker, a small-town gal who feels it is her patriotic duty to dance the night away with soldiers who are headed oversees.Read More »

  • Preston Sturges – The Great Moment (1944)

    1941-1950ComedyDramaPreston SturgesUSA

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    In the winter of 1868, Eben Frost (William Demarest) goes to a Boston pawnshop and redeems a silver medal, inscribed to “Dr. W.T.G. Morton, the Benefactor of Mankind, with the Gratitude of Humanity.” Frost drives to a country farmhouse and gives the medal to Morton’s widow, Elizabeth Morton (Betty Field) who explains to her daughter, Betty (Donivee Lee), that Frost was the first person given anesthesia by her father, Boston dentist Dr. W.T.G. Morton (Joel McCrea.)Read More »

  • Max Ophüls, Stuart Heisler, Mel Ferrer, Preston Sturges, Paul Weatherwax – Vendetta (1950)

    1941-1950DramaMax OphülsPreston SturgesRomanceStuart HeislerUSA

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Max Ophuls’ first American film. Fired by Howard Hughes after falling behind schedule, Ophuls was replaced by Preston Sturges, who had written the script. Sturges was then fired also. Over the next four years, Hughes tinkered incessantly with the project, and an array of writers and directors had their way with it. Finally editor Don Siegel attempted to put the thing together and make sense of it.

    So the movie is messy but with stunning sequences. Most sources credit Mel Ferrer with directing the ending, but it’s clear he only shot the leaden coda. The actual climax is a beautifully orchestrated, stunningly lit stalking scene with the principal characters hunting each other through a misty wood. Absolutely beautiful, and if this is what made Ophuls go over schedule, as seems likely, he was right to take the time to get it looking this amazing.Read More »

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