Preston Sturges - The Filmmaker Collection (Sullivan's Travels/The Lady Eve/The Palm Beach Story/Hail the Conquering Hero/The Great McGinty/Christmas in July/The Great Moment)

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Preston Sturges was a 20th-century Renaissance man who, at Paramount Pictures between 1940 and 1943, wrote and directed eight original movies unlike anything before or since. All but one were high-energy, brilliantly detailed, and very, very funny comedies that became instant classics. No one ever dreamed up a more colorful assortment of characters, wrote more lovingly textured dialogue for them, or sent them hurtling and skittering through more outrageous situations, with undertones often darker than most dramatic films. Seven of these pictures comprise this boxed set; The Miracle of Morgan's Creek is missing because it remained with Paramount when most of the studio's pre-1949 inventory was acquired decades ago by Universal/MCA. (It's on DVD via Paramount.) The omission of a single film from the cycle--and one of the very best--is regrettable, but there's plenty here to relish.

Sturges was already an established playwright and screenwriter when he cajoled Paramount into letting him direct one of his own scripts. The Great McGinty won him the 1940 Oscar for best original screenplay, the raffish tale of a bum (Brian Donlevy) who ingratiates himself with the political machine of a heartland city by successfully voting 37 times in one election, then rises to become "reform" candidate for governor. The film is a glowing example of Sturges's penchant for filling the foregrounds as well as backgrounds of his movies with flavorful, mostly nameless character actors and according each of them star status, if only for one world-class line of dialogue. They and Sturges stood by one another throughout the cycle, and the result was a richness variously--and aptly--likened to Dickens or Bruegel.

Christmas in July (1940) followed, a sardonic but big-hearted comedy about a young working-class couple (Dick Powell and Ellen Drew) duped into believing one topsy-turvy afternoon that they've struck it rich by winning a slogan contest. Then came the film widely regarded as Sturges's most side-splitting, The Lady Eve (1941). Barbara Stanwyck is merciless--and breathtakingly sexy--as a second-generation con artist who targets brewing heir Henry Fonda, a clueless amateur herpetologist who has spent entirely too much time up the Amazon.

Then again, there are people who name Sullivan's Travels (1942) among the best films ever made. Joel McCrea plays a successful director of Hollywood comedies who decides he must make a social-consciousness allegory, O Brother Where Art Thou? His exploratory road trip disguised as a hobo, with starlet Veronica Lake for companionship, combines Hollywood satire with starkest drama verging on horror. The film is utterly unique and shatteringly powerful.

The Palm Beach Story (1942), a return to screwball comedy, dances a goofy tarantella on the American obsession with wealth. There are a couple of dozen millionaires at large in this movie, every one of them insane: Robert Dudley as a comic deus-ex-machina ("the Wienie King"), a railroad club car filled with Sturges stalwarts ("the Ale and Quail Club"), and '20s crooner Rudy Vallee ascending to character-actor immortality as the devoted suitor of Joel McCrea's runaway wife, Claudette Colbert. At that point (still in 1942) Sturges embarked on his most tortuous project, Triumph over Pain, the fact-based chronicle of the Boston dentist (Joel McCrea) who discovered the use of ether for anaesthesia. Instead of being canonized, he was destroyed. Sturges, whose 1933 screenplay The Power and the Glory had anticipated the fractured time scheme of Citizen Kane by eight years, tried for even more complicated narrative-in-reverse here--and also studded the tragic story with startling bursts of slapstick humor. Paramount recut the film drastically and changed the title to The Great Moment; the fitful results would not be released till two years later.

Meanwhile, Sturges scored a pair of best-screenplay Oscar nominations in 1944 for The Miracle of Morgan's Creek and Hail the Conquering Hero, two small-town comedies starring Eddie Bracken as a nebbish ill-made for heroism yet obliged by wartime circumstance to rise to the occasion. Each of these films is a comic masterpiece, each asking discomfiting questions about cherished, arguably destructive American values, yet finding its own cockeyed way to affirmation. Miracle isn't available here, but Hail the Conquering Hero casts a lingering spell, beyond satire. To quote its last line: "You got no idea." --Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews:

Classic 1940s comedies.......2007-08-26

Preston Sturges may not be a big name nowadays compared to his directing contemporaries such as Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford or Frank Capra, but he was an important director in his time and even nowadays, for those who know him, he was a great director. Preston Sturges - The Filmmaker Collection - collects seven of his biggest movies.

First in the set is The Great McGinty, which stars Brian Donleavy as a man who goes from being a bum to a governor, only to have it all crash down on him. This is a decent enough comedy about the world of politics. It's advertising that's parodied in Christmas in July, with Dick Powell as a man who thinks he's won a contest to come up with an advertising slogan. It's all the result of a practical joke that gets way out of control before its exposed.

Things really pick up with the next three movies. The Lady Eve has Henry Fonda as a wealthy yet clumsy young man targeted by con artist Barbara Stanwyck. Unfortunately for her, she actually falls for him, but when he finds out her true profession, she must engage in an even bigger con to win him back.

Sullivan's Travels, considered by many to be Sturges's best picture, as Joel McCrea (in the first of three roles in Sturges movies) as the title character, a big-time movie director who makes great comedies but wants to make a message picture. He decides to live the life of a hobo to see how the poor live; at first, this is rather comic but at a certain point things turn much more serious, teaching Sullivan a lesson he wasn't expecting.

Things lighten up in The Palm Beach Story, with the antics even occurring in the opening credits, As McCrea and Claudette Colbert get married. Five years later, things are on the rocks as they are broke. Colbert decides to leave McCrea, figuring that if they divorce, he'll finally be able to be a success. She runs off to Florida, with her husband in pursuit, where they both wind up entangled with an eccentric billionaire and his man-hungry sister.

Next in the set - and the weakest in the septet - is The Great Moment, a drama loosely based on the true story of a dentist (played by McCrea) who discovered the use of ether as an anesthetic. With little in the way of comedy and recutting done by the studio after Sturges had finished it, this muddled film has its moments, but no great ones.

The last movie, Hail the Conquering Hero, gets things back on stride with Sturges sly tribute to the Marines. Eddie Bracken plays a shipyard worker who was medically discharged from the Marines for chronic hay fever. He befriends some Marines, who set up a ruse to make him seem like a hero to his unaware mother. Unfortunately, the ploy gets out of control as his hometown honors him and puts him up for mayor.

This movie set comes in a nice package but offers nothing in the way of extras outside of movie trailers. With four great movies (Sullivan's Travels, The Palm Beach Story, The Lady Eve and Hail the Conquering Hero), two good ones (The Great McGinty and Christmas in July) and one so-so one (The Great Moment), I am giving this set five stars. For a chance to see some classic comedies, this is worth picking up.

No bonuses, but no less than 6 masterpieces.......2007-08-06

In the 1940's at Paramount, no one topped writer/director Preston Sturges for turning out masterpiece after masterpiece at machine gun pace. Betweem 1940 and 1944, Sturges created THE GREAT McGINTY, CHRISTMAS IN JULY, SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS, THE LADY EVE, THE PALM BEACH STORY, MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK, and HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO.

The DVD boxed set, PRESTON STURGES: THE FILMMAKER COLLECTION from Universal Home Video, is an enthralling and hugely engrossing Sturges feast that presents gorgeous studio prints of every film above except MORGAN'S CREEK, which is available on a solo Paramount Home Video DVD.

Not even Capra or Wilder topped Sturges for blending comedy and drama to perfection--and often being nominated for a writing Oscar. (He won in 1940.) THE GREAT McGINTY is a political satire and shaggy dog story about a nobody (Brian Donlevy) who votes several times in an election and is made Mayor of a town by boss Akim Tamiroff. Then McGinty becomes Governor of the state--with the proviso that he does favors for "The Boss".

CHRISTMAS IN JULY has a coffee slogan contest between rival coffee companies in New York City. Ordinary clerk Dick Powell believes, falsely, that he has won grand prize. He and girl friend Ellen Drew go on a super spending spree. What happens when they realize that they have not really won? The ending is an ironic wow. This little 67 minute gem is where the Sturges stock company of supporting actors is really noticeable: William Demarest (especially), Raymond Walburn, Robert Warwick, Al Bridge, Jimmy Conlin, Porter Hall, and Franklin Pangborn. All of them seem to appear in each Sturges film. And the character names are clever and funny.

THE LADY EVE has professional card sharks and gamblers Barbara Stanwyck and Charles Coburn trying to cheat schnook snake lover Henry Fonda on a ship voyage. But they have a change of heart when Barbara falls for the guy.

SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS is a towering masterpiece with Joel McCrea's greatest performance. He plays film director John L. Sullivan who wants to make a serious social protest film. "But with a little sex in it," his producers add hopefully. Masquerading as a hobo, Sullivan meets up with Veronica Lake, who bravely deglamorizes herself because she has a great role. As the film gets darker and darker, a false murder and mistaken identity leads to a chain gang climax and a happy ending.

I don't like THE PALM BEACH STORY as much as I do other films in this Universal collection. But the train from New York to Florida with William Demarest and the Quail and Ale Club is screamingly funny. I don't find the reel one Weinie King funny at all, and the Florida scenes with Rudy Vallee and Mary Astor as millionaires after fun and romance only get to second base for me. It is a good movie with great scattered moments.

THE GREAT MOMENT is an interesting failure that was finished in 1942, but taken out of Sturges' hands, recut by Paramount bosses, and finally released in 1944. It stars Joel McCrea (again) in the dramatic biography of the father of anaesthesia in the 1840's. It is intelligent and well written, but the recutting leaves it all very confusing.

Leaving aside the incomparable MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK (which you can, again, buy or rent from Paramount Home Video for about $10 in a studio print edition), Sturges' last film at Paramount was HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO. In the performance of his career, Eddie Bracken plays Woodrow Truesmith, born at the very moment that his father was dying in Belleau Wood in World War One. Cursed with hay fever that makes him 4-F in World War Two (the film was made in 1944), Woodrow is befriended by William Demarest and his Marine buddies in a bar. One of the Marines, with a hilarious mother fixation, calls up Woodrow's mother and says Woodrow is coming home. So his whole town gathers to give Woodrow a hero's welcome when he steps off the train. They even run him for Mayor as the film turns into a Capra satire on small town America. What will they all do to Woodrow when they learn he never got overseas because of the nasty hay fever? HAIL is an incomparable achievement.

This is a beautifully designed DVD set with gorgeous studio prints by the copyright owner, Universal. The box is sturdy and attractive, with color poster art on the back cover. If only it had some bonuses that Warner Home Video would have put on without thinking twice---film critics chatting about the films one by one, audio commentaries, and that PBS "American Masters" feature-length documentary on Preston Sturges. I would like to know more about the man who made so many truly great, truly funny satires films back to back, then went to Fox in 1948, then apparently died of a heart attack and burn-out in the 1950's. Someone should sell the PBS biography as a solo DVD to go with this otherwise mostly magnificent collection of luscious and wonderful comedy satires from a master filmmaker. PRESTON STURGES: THE FILMMAKER COLLECTION.

Why aren't the titles available separately?.......2007-05-19

Being a major fan of Preston Sturges' comedies, I bought all of the separate releases when they came out: Sullivan's Travels, The Lady Eve, Hail the Conquering Hero and The Palm Beach Story (and also Miracle of Morgan's Creek which is not in this set). I need only Christmas in July and the Great McGinty to complete my collection. DVD manufacturers: I challenge you to explain why you think I should pay for the whole set just to get those two movies. One star given as an expression of my disgust at this totally transparent and cynical strategy to rob movie fans of their money.

The Truly Great McGinty.......2007-03-20

I think I can blurt out here without any great fear of embarrassment my conviction that Brian Donlevy's five-alarm check suit ought to at least have gotten some kind of screen credit of its own there at the end. Ain't it a dang shame this motion picture isn't in colour for just those times when that arrestingly spiffy ensemble walks on? Send me back to school but I'd pay dearly to see the real cut of that horseblanket's jib. And Dan McGinty's priceless double take on the jasper who orders the orange juice? Are you nuts? I've always thought The Palm Beach Story was the very best of Preston Trousers--Mary Astor, if you're out there, beep me--but this first lap in the writer slash director seat is a riot on wheels.

Must Have Collection.......2007-03-11

This collection of Preston Sturges classic films is a must for any serious film collector. Prior to viewing this entire set I had only seen The Lady Eve and CHristmas in July. I must say Sullivan's Travels, Palm Beach Story, Hail the Conquering Hero, The Great McGinty as well as The Great Moment were all must see movies. I think more attention should be paid to Preston Sturges as a director by classic film collectors-he was truly before his time!

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The Palm Beach Story
"Useless wife" in demand (recommended)
Not Sturges' best, but still pretty great
Claudette Colbert and writer-director Preston Sturges: it doesn't get better
A Romantic Farce

The Palm Beach Story
Starring: Claudette Colbert , Joel McCrea , Mary Astor , Rudy Vallee , and Sig Arno
Director: Preston Sturges
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: B0006H32DY
Release Date: 2005-02-01

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Among the earliest writers to set his sights on the director's chair, Preston Sturges brought a frank, unsentimental view of the war between the sexes to his mid-'40s features that exemplify his style, as demonstrated in this prescient 1942 gem. Architect Tom Jeffers (Joel McCrea) and his wife, Gerry (Claudette Colbert), further refine the archetypal Sturges couple--the male embodying strength, idealism, and a certain naivete, the female ultimately stronger, smarter, and (as revealed early on in an astonishing speech by Colbert) clearer-eyed and more pragmatic about the subtext of sex. This giddy shaggy-dog story follows the couple's split, and Gerry's subsequent flight to Palm Beach. This head-snapping frolic is paced by double-entendres and lampooning looks at the very rich, with standout performances by the predatory Princess Centimillia (the delicious Mary Astor), who's more than ready to comfort Tom, and the wealthy, dim-witted John D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee, staking out a new career, post-crooner, as comic foil), Gerry's new suitor. Even the predictable reunion of the star-crossed lovers is achieved with an antic surrealism. Sturges's strength in building strong character ensembles is matched by his affection for coupling screwball dialogue with physical slapstick, seldom to better effect than in the drunken target practice of the Ale and Quail Club, who make Colbert's train ride to Florida a different kind of shoot-'em-up. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews:

The Palm Beach Story.......2007-06-25

Preston Sturges's inspired romantic romp remains delightfully kooky and fresh. McCrea and Colbert create divinely combustible chemistry, and Astor almost steals the picture as the zany heiress (her title alone is priceless). And watch out for Sturges's peerless group of comic stock players (including stand-by William Demarest), seen here in the guise of "The Ale and Quail Club". Irresistible fun.

"Useless wife" in demand (recommended).......2006-03-28

Penniless Geraldine "Gerry" Jeffers (Claudette Colbert), knows how far her good looks can take her in the world. She loves her husband, Tom Jeffers (Joel McCrea) but doesn't like being poor and he is unwilling to pimp her innocent feminine wiles. The solution? Leaving her husband for Palm Beach to file for a divorce with nothing more than the clothes on her back, she becomes one of the world's best dressed women before she can even set foot in the divorce captiol of the day. (If you know anything about Colbert's movies, you realize she can wear some stunning outfits.) Her gallant husband heads her off to convince her how irrational she is but is surprised to find her stepping off a yacht with a 1940's counterpart to Bill Gates, John D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee). So as not to foil her apparently successful plans, she introduces Tom as her brother -- which makes him an all-the-more attractive flavor of the week to a wealthy man's excentric sister, Princess Centimillia (Mary Astor). What is more important, love or money? Find out who ultimately wins Gerry's heart in this screwball romance story.

Movie quote: "Just because I'm a useless wife doesn't mean I couldn't be very valuable to you as a sister."

Not Sturges' best, but still pretty great.......2006-03-16

This film featuring Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert, as a couple seeking out new life partners for the sake of the other, came in the middle of the peak of writer/director Preston Sturges' career. (For the record, I consider that the peak began in 1940 with The Great McGinty, ended in 1944 with Hail the Conquering Hero, and includes The Lady Eve [1941], Sullivan's Travels [1941], and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek [1944]. That's quite a roll for anybody!) The Palm Beach Story doesn't quite match up to his best work, but it still has a lot more going for it than at first it seems.

McCrea (John Sullivan in Sullivan's Travels) stars as Tom Jeffers, an architect who doesn't make a lot of money, but has a big dream: to build his own airport. His wife, Gerry (Colbert), wants to support his dream ... by divorcing him so she can marry rich and give him money on the side. Her argument is that they don't love each other anymore, and all that is left is love and respect (their behavior towards each other says otherwise).

Then the first implausible thing happens: he goes along with her idea. Posing as her brother (they look alike because everyone marries his/her own face), he will have approval over who his wife marries. On her way to Palm Beach to meet a millionaire, she meets one on the train, John D. "Snoodles" Hackensacker, III (Rudy Vallee, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer), who falls for her is his own milquetoasty way. (Being Vallee, he even serenades her in one scene.) Snoodles also has a sister, who has been married five times and "will marry anything." She is played by Mary Astor (the femme fatale in The Maltese Falcon), whose saucy reputation is thoroughly covered in Kenneth Anger's tinsel-town expose, Hollywood Babylon.

The Palm Beach Story doesn't come across as very original, but it has a lot of charm. McCrea and Colbert make an ideal couple, and you just know that they will end up together (just like in The Awful Truth, the original Mr. and Mrs. Smith [the only pure comedy directed by Alfred Hitchcock], Phffft!, and all the other loving-couple-tries-to-stay-apart-but-realizes-they-really-love-each-other films of that screwball subgenre). Astor plays her character as a mix of Angelica and Cornelia Bullock (Alice Brady and Gail Patrick, respectively) from My Man Godfrey, and her hanger-on, Toto (Sig Arno), resembles no one more than that film's Carlo (Mischa Auer). Of course, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn, and Robert Greig show up in smaller roles to complete the full Sturges picture (the three were in a number of his films, always in memorable roles). My only real complaints with The Palm Beach Story are the slow pace and the fact that the happy ending requires such a ridiculous deus ex machina, but I can't help but admire Sturges for actually going through with it.

Claudette Colbert and writer-director Preston Sturges: it doesn't get better.......2006-03-08

By 1942, screwball comedies had become quite old-fashioned, nevertheless when THE PALM BEACH STORY was released it became one of the top box-office winners of the year, and garnered much praise for it's stars, and writer-director Preston Sturges.

Married-but penniless couple Gerry and Tom Jeffers (Claudette Colbert and Joel McCrea) decide to divorce, so Gerry hops the train to Palm Beach to make all the proper arrangements. Realising his big mistake, Tom follows Gerry but when he arrives in Palm Beach, he discovers that Gerry has already moved on with eccentric zillionaire J.D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee). Things take another zany turn when Tom is chased by J.D.'s man-eating sister Princess Centimillia (Mary Astor). Hilarious slapstick sequences and the rapier dialogue of Preston Sturges makes this film one of the greatest of classic Hollywood comedies.

Claudette Colbert's performance as Gerry is easily one of her best, evoking fond memories of her Oscar-winning role in "It Happened One Night". Joel McCrea, who spent most of his career idling in B-movie territory, is the perfect straight-man to Colbert's comedic whirlwind. Rudy Vallee and Mary Astor steal every scene in which they appear, with great support from Sig Arno (as the Princess' latest conquest), Robert Warwick, William Demarest, Chester Conklin and Frankin Pangborn.

A Romantic Farce.......2006-02-18

Claudette Colbert plays a woman married to a struggling architect played by Joel McCrea. She loves him but not the lifestyle. She also thinks that he can do better without her so she takes it into her head to run away to Palm Beach to get a quickie divorce. He, on the other hand, is not so fickle. He loves her and does not want to lose her. He takes off chasing after her to stop the divorce. While en route, she is aided by a gentleman who not only turns out to be one of the richest men in the world, he also falls for her. Mr. Rich Guy has a socialite sister who happens to fall for the jilted husband as he tries to woo back his wife. The issue is complicated because the runaway bride lies and says that her husband is in fact her brother. It's a story of guys chasing gals and vice versa with nothing sacred or too serious.

This film has some light moments and is evocative of a long past style. It brought back memories even though I was not even born in the era it portrayed. There is nothing overly memorable about the film but it was an enjoyable experience. If you like old movies, especially romantic comedies, this is a good bet.

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Port of New York "Yul Brynner" / Gangs Inc. "Alan Ladd" / I Cover the Waterfront "Claudette Colbert" / Algiers "Charles Boyer" [4 DVDs]

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Port of New York "Yul Brynner" / Gangs Inc. "Alan Ladd" / I Cover the Waterfront "Claudette Colbert" / Algiers "Charles Boyer" [4 DVDs]

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