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

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...

I'm not sure, but my favorite scene of these might be in "Unfaithfully Yours" when the wife is being given a death sentence and Rex Harrison is in the back of the courtroom laughing his head off.

Holy Smokes, The Palm Beach Story! Just...WOW.

The Ale & Quail Society=The NRA in my eyes.

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

― s1ocki kong country (cankles), Tuesday, March 3, 2009 10:11 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^^

WEENIE KING

Yeah, c'mon, the Weenie King! Palm Beach Story is the best.

I got a Sturges box for Christmas, and re-watched "Palm Beach Story" recently. I love how unsentimental Colbert is in the break-up scenes, and Vallee is pitch-perfect as John D. Hackensacker. Just about perfect.

Jim Knipfel praises The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (I really liked it the one time I saw it):

http://chiseler.org/post/48926315855/harold-lloyds-last

haven't watched any of these in a long time but the one that affected me most was 'christmas in july.' the final speech mentioned upthread still makes me choke up a bit.

From Unfaithfully Yours:
"Is there any insanity in his family?"
"I don't know but there's plenty in mine."

Glad I've finally made the mental genre adjustment and warmed up to that one.

crick! CRICK!

Sullivan's Travels never quite got to the level of the first scene again, although Lake killed it.

Lost its way quite a bit, and not only on one occasion.

Have Morgan Creek and Palm Beach Story ready to once I get a college break.

Sullivan's Travels doesn't stay in standard Romantic Comedy mode the whole way through, it is somewhat similar to Unfaithfully Yours in that regard, but this doesn't necessarily mean it is lesser than the other films.

I agree with darraghmac though -- it's my least favorite of the classics.

Yeah, mine too, truth be told, but I've watched the others so many times feel like it was time to give some love to that one. Also, I didn't fully get Unfaithfully Yours until last year.

yeah, i don't think that it was a failure to hold to a given genre that pulled me out of it though, and i wouldnt hold such a failure as a negative if the script kept a thread moving throughout the events. for all its snappy lines and good character turns (you'd not expect less anyway) it tacked on a beginning and an ending to a bit of a muddled middle imo.

tbh a lot of Depression and post-Depression films garble their politics. Check out My Man Godfrey or Easy Living.

you hafta appeal to eberbody!

also fuck you guys

I need to watch it again. Trying to remember, is Al Bridge the heavy when Sullivan is on the chain gang? If so, a departure from his usual grumpy but ultimately amiable self in the other films.

But not from his prior roles as in Hopalong Cassidy films apparently. He's like another splinter member of The Wild Bunch.

In the forties, Bridge was part of Preston Sturges' unofficial "stock company" of character actors, appearing in ten of the eleven American films that Sturges wrote and directed.[7] He is perhaps best remembered for his role as "The Mister", the chain-gang boss over Joel McCrea in Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels.[8][9]

The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend isn't that bad. Kind of Tashlin-like, if I remember correctly, at least in its brightness and zip and silliness, if not in its style of editing and use of blackout gags.

Thanks, darraghmac, but I already reconstructed that gone missing neurological pathway between posts, same way I recently had to remind myself of Julius Tannen's "talking picture" bit in Singin' in the Rain

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.