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Seven Good Movies by a Great Hollywood Auteur

Preston Sturges wrote and directed eight films released between 1940 and 1944 that collectively constitute one of the finest bodies of work in cinema history. All eight of these movies are worth seeing, and four are on AFI's list of 100 best American comedies. A good way to get familiar with this great writer-director is through the splendid seven-disc DVD set Preston Sturges: The Filmmaker Collection, which contains seven of the eight movies.

Sturges was famous for combining witty dialogue, farcical situations and slapstick humor to create fast-paced comedies that provide insight into the American way of life. He worked with a variety of stars, and among those showcased in the DVD set are Henry Fonda, Claudette Colbert, Barbara Stanwyck, Veronica Lake, Joel McCrea and Eddie Bracken. And for supporting roles, Sturges had a stock company of superb character actors. For example, William Demarest is in all seven movies in the DVD set, Robert Warwick is in six of them and Franklin Pangborn is in five.

Unfortunately, the DVD set contains only seven of the eight films, and the one not included is the wonderful Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944) (although it is available separately on DVD). Also, you should be advised that, aside from theatrical trailers, the DVD set supplies no bonus materials. Still, I highly recommend Preston Sturges: The Filmmaker Collection because the seven feature films are so good. Below I'll discuss each movie individually.

Sullivan's Travels (1941)

One of my two favorite movies in the collection, Sullivan's Travels is generally regarded as Sturges' greatest film. It uses almost every kind of comedy from wordplay to satire. The story is about John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), a Hollywood director who got rich doing lightweight entertainment, but decides to make a socially conscious film about the downtrodden. He goes on the road as a hobo and has some hilarious adventures, but he also discovers the hard way that tramps and big-shots are treated very differently in the American criminal justice system. As Sullivan looks back on his experiences, he muses, "There's a lot to be said for making people laugh. Did you know that's all some people have? It isn't much, but it's better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan."

The Lady Eve (1941)

The other of my two favorite movies in the collection, The Lady Eve is arguably Sturges' funniest film. It's a screwball comedy that features a memorable romantic pairing of Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. Much of the zany story takes place on a luxury ocean liner where shy Charles Pike (Fonda), heir to an ale fortune, encounters Jean Harrington (Stanwyck), a con woman who works with her father (Charles Coburn). Charles falls hard for Jean, then breaks with her. But later, at a posh high society soiree, Charles meets an Englishwoman calling herself Lady Eve Sidwich (Stanwyck again), who's a dead ringer for Jean. The movie's dialogue sparkles. For example, when Jean tells her father she'd like to see him "giving some old harpy the three-in-one," he responds, "Don't be vulgar, Jean. Let us be crooked, but never common."

The Palm Beach Story (1942)

"And they lived happily ever after. Or did they?" That's the question at the end of what is probably Sturges' wackiest movie, The Palm Beach Story. It's a screwball comedy, and if it's not quite as good as the two films described above, it's only a tick below them. It's about Tom and Gerry (Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert), a New York married couple who split up. Gerry heads for Florida, and on the way falls in with a hunting club whose members get skunk drunk and shoot up the train. In the Sunshine State, she is wooed by a millionaire (Rudy Vallee), while his five-times-married sister (Mary Astor) tries to bed Tom. Vallee gets one of those killer Sturges lines: "That's one of the tragedies of this life—that the men who are most in need of a beating-up are always enormous."

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