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

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.