Preston Sturges Festival

[Olympic Fan]

I just wanted to alert any other classic movie buffs that Turner Classic Movies will be running a six-film Preston Sturges festival, starting Satuirday Night (June 30).

For those of you who aren't familiar with his films, Sturges was a successful Hollywood writer during the 1930s (Twentieth Century, Strickly Dishonorable, Imitation of Life, Easy Living) who was given the chance to direct in the early 1940s. He burned out quickly, but his first 10 films -- between The Great McGinty in 1940 and Unfaithfully Yours in 1948 -- are comic masterpieces (well, nine of them are, it's a little hard to tell about The Great Moment). Nobody else has been able to blend sophisticated romantic comedy with slapstick farce in quite the same way. He worked with some of Hollywood's biggest stars (Fonda, Stanwick, Rex Harrison, Claudette Colbert, Harold Lloyd) but he also maintained a "stock compnay" of familiar character actors that he used to populate his films.

The Festival starts with the film that is usually acknowledged as his masterpiece -- 1941's Sullivan's Travels. Joel McCrea is a successful comic director who longs to make a great socially revelevant drama. Unfortunately, his life of privilege has insulated him from reality. To remedy that situation, he hits the road, pretending to be a hobo -- where along the way, he meets an out-of-work actress, played by an incredibly fetching Veronica Lake. In the end, McCrea learns the value of comedy ...

Next up (at 9:45) is 1940's Christmas in July, the first film Sturges directed (but not the first to hit the screen) about a lowly clerk (Dick Powell) who thinks he's won a coffee slogan writing contest.

That's followed (ar 11 p.m.) by The Great McGinity with Brian Donleavy. While it was Sturges' second film, it was the first to be released. I love the opening -- a broken man in a seedy South American bar tells the bartender that he was an honest man, destroyed by one moment of dishonesty. The bartender explains that he's a dishonest man destroyed by one moment of honesty -- and that story turns out to be the movie.

The third and fourth films in the series are my personal favorites from the Sturges collection. At 12:30 am (DVR it!) is 1941's The Lady Eve with Barbara Stanwyck as a beautiful con-artist trying to rope nerdy scientist (and the heir to a brewery fortune) Henry Fonda. At 2:15 is 1944's Hail the Conquering Hero. I think that's one of the bravest movies ever made -- a farce that lamphoons patriotism in the middle of WWII. Eddie Bracken is the son of a WWI Medal of Honor winner who is rejected by the army for hay fever. Nobody in his home town knows that and he works in a San Francisco factory until one night he befriends a bunch of Marines in a bar and they decide to take him home as one of them.

The last film is 1942's The Lady Eve. Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert and a happily married couple until she runs off (thinking it will help his career) and falls in with Rudy Vallee (doing a desvastating comic turn as a Rockefella like character.

If you do watch these films, keep an eye out for William Demarest (Unclie Charlie from My Three Sons). He is a featured member of Sturges' stock company -- he has a small (but great) role in Christmas in July; a small role in Palm Beach Story (you've got to see the Ale and Quail Club that he's a part of); a much bigger role in The Lady Eve (he gets the classic last line in that film) and is central to Hail the Conquering Hero (he's the sergeant of the Marines).

Too bad the Festival does not include Demarest's greatest performance as Officer Edmund Knockenlocker -- the father who learns that his daughter is pregnant by a soldier she supposedly married ... but can't remember his name in 1944's Miracle of Morgan's Creek. How did Sturges ever get that one by the censors??

If you aren't familiar with Sturges's films, I urge you to give Sullivan's Travels a chance ... if you do, I'm betting you'll want to see more of his work.

[throatybeard]

Thanks for the heads-up. We need more movie threads that are like this one. I'm heading out of town but will set my DVR before I leave.

Stanwyck...I stepped into a bar on Delmar tonight to check the Cardinals game. On the auxiliary TV was Double Indemnity. Not just that, but the iconic scene with the glasses where they see each other in a store. Ha! No sound. But it's unmistakable.

[rasputin]

Thanks for the heads-up. We need more movie threads that are like this one. I'm heading out of town but will set my DVR before I leave.

Stanwyck...I stepped into a bar on Delmar tonight to check the Cardinals game. On the auxiliary TV was Double Indemnity. Not just that, but the iconic scene with the glasses where they see each other in a store. Ha! No sound. But it's unmistakable.

But was she wearing her anklet?

[g_olaf]

I just wanted to alert any other classic movie buffs that Turner Classic Movies will be running a six-film Preston Sturges festival, starting Satuirday Night (June 30)...

The Festival starts with the film that is usually acknowledged as his masterpiece -- 1941's Sullivan's Travels. Joel McCrea is a successful comic director who longs to make a great socially revelevant drama. Unfortunately, his life of privilege has insulated him from reality. To remedy that situation, he hits the road, pretending to be a hobo -- where along the way, he meets an out-of-work actress, played by an incredibly fetching Veronica Lake. In the end, McCrea learns the value of comedy ...
...

If you aren't familiar with Sturges's films, I urge you to give Sullivan's Travels a chance ... if you do, I'm betting you'll want to see more of his work.

Worth pointing out that Sullivan's Travels was definitely an inspiration for the Coen brothers 'O brother where art thou'... including the title of the movie.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Thanks for the heads up. I DVR'd all of them, but haven't watched yet. I did get my girlfriend to watch a clip of the Great McGinty on TCM's site though, and she and I were both laughing. We woulda watched it yesterday but the storm knocked our power out until this afternoon, so maybe we'll see it one night this week.