Category: Directed by Preston Sturges
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Smart, fun, and funny political satire slash history lesson about the rise of Machine politician Brian Donlevy, charting his path from Depression-ravaged forgotten man to thug to politician to lover to fighter. Great performances from everyone involved–Donlevy’s got the least flashy part but he holds the whole thing up. Muriel Angelus is great as his…
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Sullivan’s Travels is almost impossibly well-constructed. Director Sturges, editor Stuart Gilmore and photographer John F. Seitz go through various, entirely different narrative devices and do them all perfectly. Whether it’s a high speed chase, Veronica Lake having a screwball comedy sequence on the studio backlot, Lake and lead Joel McCrea having soul-searching conversations, McCrea and…
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Preston Sturges has a great structure to The Lady Eve. The first part of the film–the majority of the runtime–has wealthy oddball Henry Fonda returning home on a ship and falling in love with Barbara Stanwyck. Makes sense, as she’s wonderful, only she (and her father, Charles Coburn) are card sharps out to fleece rich…
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The Palm Beach Story is a narrative. Director Sturges opens with a rapidly cut prologue showing stars Claudette Colbert and Joel McCrea getting married, where he inserts clues for what will eventually be the film’s utterly pointless deus ex machina. Sure, Palm Beach runs less than ninety minutes so it’s possible the viewer be sitting…
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There are a handful of “Sturges moments” in The Great Moment. I suppose I’d define those moments as the ones where the predictable or familiar filmic device transcends artifice (even if it’s as artificial as the text a character is reading appearing on the screen for the viewer to read as well) and becomes… ideal.…
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4F Eddie Bracken spends WWII working in a shipyard but writes letters back home about his overseas exploits. He tells a group of Marines (led by William Demarest) about the regrettable ruse and they decide to make it real, taking him home the hero. Ella Raines is the girl he left behind. Spectacular script and…
The Stop Button 