Preston Sturges: The PurPOLL one, with the pluuuuuuuuuuuumes at the hips.

I used to play Russian Roulette all the time with my father!

Despite my failure to have watched them all, I seriously doubt my heart can be stolen away from "Unfaithfully Yours."

The Lady Eve, now and forever, but The Great McGinty-Hail the Conquering Hero may be the greatest sequence in American comedy.

As ridiculous incarnations of male insecurity go, I can hardly see how Fonda comes within a hundred miles of Harrison.

i got a cheapo box set of sturges stuff for xmas, just waiting for the time to settle in with it...

i watched em all (well, not the late ones) in rapid succession two years ago and have some difficulty separating them. probably between 'sullivan's travels' and 'miracle of morgan creek' for me, based on what i can remember.

favorite to least

# Sullivan's Travels (1941)
# The Lady Eve (1941)
# The Palm Beach Story (1942)
# The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)
# Unfaithfully Yours (1948)

although they were all pretty good!

I have still never seen his last two, reportedly both dispiriting.

The five stone masterpieces from Lady Eve thru Conquering Hero are maybe the most amazing 4-year feat by a Hollywood writer-director. My fave has always been Morgan's Creek, but I can't argue vs picking any of those (tho Palm Beach is probably the fluffiest, and most antic).

TS: Mary Astor in Midnight vs Mary Astor in The Palm Beach Story.

morgan's creek the funniest, voted sullivan's travels cuz lake is so smashable

jeez, put it in yr pants (I'd be smashing Joel McCrea and not Eddie Bracken. well, not now.)

Voted 'Lady Eve' but these are all great. Lake is indeed quite fetching in 'Sullivan's Travels' and I am a big fan of 'Unfaithfully Yours'. I find 'Miracle at Morgan's Creek' a little grating at times, actually.

i think that dude in morgan's creek is the funniest actor ever.

Jerry Lewis fans have a headstart on appreciating Bracken (who I did get an autograph from).

xp: Demarest?

no, i meant bracken!

Morgan's Creek = just not my style of humor. I've tried. I think I'd have to go with Lady Eve too.

I'm not crazy about Bracken either; I rank his two 1944 movies below their predecessors.

If Jerry Lewis' The Ladies Man doesn't count, then The Palm Beach Story is my vote for the greatest classical Hollywood comedy. So that. Then Christmas in July if only for Ellen Drew's climactic, eternal speech which I recommend to those who don't get the fascination with American Idol. Then others. Definitely check out the underexposed The Sin of Harold Diddlebock. Most overrated: Some snowy night, in front of the fire.

Harold Diddlebock, Unfaithfully, McGinty and Christmas all splendid but a notch or two below the others. I don't hate Great Moment either.

I love them all to varying degrees but like you, haven't seen the last two.

guess i gotta say eve or sullivan's. fuck, where the fuck is MY sturges box set... which of my deadbeat friends borrowed it

I have to admit, I couldn't finish Hail the Conquering Hero. I guess I should try again.

Maybe you got distracted by ...the spots! ... the spots!

Oh wait, wrong Eddie Bracken movie.

HtCH out-Capras Capra.

in a good way.

morgan's creek is hilarious, so that
i actually don't like sullivan's travels at all (despite v. lake)
palm beach is funny too but doesn't hold up on repeat viewings very well

the ones of these ive seen are unfaithfully yours and lady eve

"Convulse me."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Palm_Beach_Story_McCrea_Colbert_trailer_screenshot3.jpg/250px-Palm_Beach_Story_McCrea_Colbert_trailer_screenshot3.jpg

Would Palm Beach Story/Ride the High Country be the most jarring McCrae double feature? Sounds worth trying, at least.

Why would it be? He's so amiable and unassumingly sexy (I find him hot, actually).

Just really different roles, I guess. Maybe I'm talking nonsense. It happened before, once.

all hail The Miracle of Morgan's Creek DVD
I Don't Think He'd Have Given It To Me If I Had Hair Like EXCELSIOR Or Little Legs Like An Alligator

Went for The Lady Eve, even if the second half doens't quite measure up to the first.

I'll also join the chorus of Bracken dissenters

Yeah, Bracken annoyed me too. But I'm here to praise Sturges, so ignore the negativity.

you guys are a bunch of Ratzkywatzkys

Kockenlocker!

I've only seen the first seven plus "Unfaithfully Yours" (which woulda been better if it had Bill Demarest in the Lionel Stander role the way Sturges intended) but yeah, whatta half-decade. This'll require some thought...

Sullivan's for The Win!

Have to vote for 'Lady Eve', but if the ones I haven't seen that you fellas are raving about are even better than I've got me some treats awaiting.

THEN not than

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

How should I vote? Ack! How could I vote?

(tears his hair out and runs from room to room)

I'll take over from here, Ambrose.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

having seen only sullivans travels, i shall watch the rest of his movies in the order the poll above suggests (i didnae vote)

I watched the Palm Beach Story again last night. Fun, but I am well content with my vote for Sullivan's Travels.

Saw Christmas in July today, laffed like moron about every other minute. When he was explaining his convoluted slogan all I could think of was, uh, ILM.

it isn't the coffee...

Midnight is much better than Easy Living, but I've a pretty strong anti-Arthur bias.

Stanwyck was pretty popular in Hollywood with cast and crew alike; her bio has dozens of anecdotes of her on-set kindnesses and her lack of ego (Sirk and Wilder have said she would sit by herself with the script, knowing everyone else's lines).

As for her politics, well:

She became an early member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPA) after its founding in 1944. The mission of this group was to "combat ... subversive methods [used in the industry] to undermine and change the American way of life."[92][93] It opposed both communist and fascist influences in Hollywood. She publicly supported the investigations of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and her husband Robert Taylor testified as a friendly witness.[

otoh here's Sirk (re-posted from the Stanwyck thread):

Unfortunately I couldn't give her any great parts in those days. I did see All I Desire again. And you know there is nothing, NOTHING the least bit phony about her ever. Because she isn't capable of it. That insignificant little part she did with me and she played it all right out of herself. And yet she is so discreet -- she gets every point, every nuance without hitting on anything too heavily. And there is such a tragic stillness about her at the same time. She never steps out of it and she never puts it on, this deep melancholy in her presence...

...But that was a rare thing. She impressed me all the time as someone -- what can I say? -- someone who had really been touched by life in some way. Because she had depth as a person. I wish I could have done a really great picture with her...

I read a biography a few decades ago that talked about Preston Sturges' mother being involved with Alesiter Crowley. Think it must have been a Preston Sturges one I read in Dublin. Just sticks in my mind from way back when think they were engaged or something.
Think I need to watch a few of his films cos it's been a while.

Ah right, I think I did at one point know about the HUAC-y stuff. Oh well, she's pretty handily one of my favorite actors of all time, so I choose not to care. Plus her career/filmography is an enduring political (feminist) force itself. Compared to your Waynes and Mitchums, it's hard to see Stanwyck-the-star as anything other than progressive on balance, imo. Way off topic now, but I saw her in Fuller's Forty Guns recently and that is such a blast plus and a sincerely remarkable role.

Need to watch that properly. Was just thinking that the relationship with the brother may mirror her relationship with her own brother.

All good, but Capra?

https://filmforum.org/series/written-directed-by-preston-sturges
Jan 20 to Feb 2
https://filmforum.org/do-not-enter-or-modify-or-erase/client-uploads/FF_Sturges_Series_flyer_v7.pdf

Yup

Quite pleased that on our group chat a student admitted she'd watched among other "old Hollywood films" The Palm Beach Story this weekend.

What’s buzzin’, cousins?

Can never unread what I read about Rudy Vallée in Dark City Dames.

Say, what’s the big idea, anyway?
Kismet!

You shouldn’t be giving away a real kolinsky.

With a little corruption from you, the curfew shall not rang next week.

This is the last cheese in the trap.

Now kiss each other goodbye and get back to your offices!

Why? I’ll tell you why. I don’t beat around the back door just to come down in the coal chutes!

Now starting to regret that I missed my chance to see The Good Fairy at The Film Forum.

Take the young lady up to the Imperial Soots!

The storm and strifes, she just give me a buzz

This time the goose is geesed or vice-versa.

If I could get a word in edgeways around here, with one of my unimportant quibbles, we’ll get somewhere!

Play excuse the live-blogging. I liked that a lot more than Morbius, I guess.

Here is his take: S/D, POX: Screwball comedies

Also reposting a link he provided to an overview of a Leisen retro: http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/design-for-living-20081023

There's a ton of info hidden on the TCM website that can't be found anywere else but you have to click through a bit to find it, such as in these notes: https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/73851/easy-living#notes

Leisen cast Esther Dale as the secretary because she looked just like Eleanor Broder (apparently his assistant); and the phone gag was based on Broder, who used to get the several telephones on her desk mixed up. Broder, quoted in the modern source, states that Arthur was "terribly concerned" with the way she looked, and Leisen personally directed all her wardrobe and hair tests and styled her hair himself, with the belief that if an actress is satisfield with the way she looks on the screen, she will devote all of her attention to her acting.

caught four of these at the recently-concluded Film Forum series: Unfaithfully Yours, Morgan's Creek, Lady Eve, and Palm Beach Story. Had a good time at all, would rank them descending in that order. UF had me DYING, what a beautiful balance of verbal, observational and slapstick laughs, with the slapstick mostly pushed to the end so you're REALLY on board for seeing this guy taken down every possible peg.

Palm Beach Story was still packed with good line deliveries, but, cryptosicko otm upthread: the train sequence is bad.

(as always, nothing like great comedy in a theater. also for three of the four, i went with my pal who knew and really loved the films since way back, so it felt extra fun.)

So then wouldn't The Lady Eve rank above Morgan's Creek?

Woulda gone to some of those with you DC!

i don't know what to say to people who don't like the train sequence in Palm Beach Story--if you don't love a bunch of drunken hunting assholes singing at the top of their lungs and driving their hunting dogs through the train waking people up, not to mention the shotgun shooting inside the meal car. . . . I mean that's like peak movie watching. Just astounding

It goes on for a bit and the cutaways to the google-eyed Black waiter are a bit much (and I know the latter was standard for its time). I don't hate it, though. I like the shot of the uncoupled train receding while the drunken fools keeps shouting and shooting.

was watching the Lady Eve over the weekend and he just has set pieces in the middle of films just for a laff. . . like when Eugene Pallette is hungry for his breakfast. . . there's like 4 or 5 little bits just to get to the part when he's banging the lids together. hilarious

No one played patrician exasperation better than hardcore conservative Pallette.

you can see the steam coming out of his ears

"Standard for its time" sure but I do think Sturges is amongst the auteurs least shy about having these comedy black characters; don't see as many of them in Hawks and Wilder. Which doesn't necc mean he was worse - erasure is as insulting as caricature, at least he got some black actors paid - but yeah, more uncomfortable moments for sure.

Xposts

Should I buy Stuart Klawans’s book, I wonder.

Spending money stimulates the economy and creates JOBS!

What Would the Weenie King Do?

I’m generally not a fan of screwball comedy, but I tried The Palm Beach Story since it’s leaving Criterion, and enjoyed most of it. But man, that scene with simultaneous firearms, piano pounding and dogs barking is everything I dislike about the genre, confusing loud and frantic for funny.

Finally watched EASY LIVING for the first time a few weeks ago, hadn’t even realized it was leaving until yesterday. Maybe y’all saw me live blogging it up thread. Both Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder and no doubt Andrew Sarris as well badmouthed Mitchell Leisen so much I used to steer clear of him but he has several classics under his belt, minor or otherwise.

Hmm. Sarris filed him under Likely Likeable and was a pretty big fan of EASY LIVING.

https://bampfa.org/event/easy-living-6

As Andrew Sarris notes: “Curiously, Easy Living is the only film with which Sturges the writer was associated in the thirties that may be reasonably preferred to any of his own forties films. Not only is Easy Living funny and gracious and generous in the best Sturges tradition: it is velvety smooth and comfortably movieish in a way no Sturges-directed film ever was.”

Don’t know if this has been linked yet.
https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2022/cteq/some-enchanted-evening-mitchell-lesien-and-preston-sturges-remember-the-night-1940/

You're up late!

Saw Sullivan's Travels again last week. I forgot how broad the slapstick is! The smart in Sturges is really smart, but the stupid is really stupid. As a director he doesn't seem to have much of an idea how to shoot pratfalls, even though there are a LOT of them.

I think a lot of the directors Sarris lowballed in the '60s he ultimately came around on when the '90s rolled around

That's probably true, but I get the feeling that many people weren't paying close attention by that time and still live by the sacred text that is The American Cinema.

Just saw The Lady Eve for the first time (actually caught the last 3/4 then watched the entire thing with my wife.

"I need him like the ax needs the turkey."

What a great movie! One thing that was incredible watching it the second time was how so much happens in the last 20 minutes (the whole second relationship).

I just rewatched a few weeks ago for the umpteenth time and was also amazed when I noted how short that section is time-wise.