Preston Sturges #6: "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" (1944)

It is this brief sojourn in Preston Sturges' career that saw the director slip into a one-two punch of small-town wartime hysteria - the first half being the wacky, unbounded and ultimately buoyant "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek". 
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In a career rife with production code red flags and taboo middle-class issues, Sturges never skirted the line of controversy like he does here. 
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Trudy Kockenlocker (played by Betty Hutton) is a small-town girl who wants to give the soldiers a fine night before their sent off to war in the morning. Against her father's wishes, she organizes a cover-up with the local dweeb, Norval, (Eddie Bracken, who would team up yet again with Sturges) so she can attend the dance and see the boys off. 
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In true hangover fashion, the events of the night are revealed piece-by-piece - partly because Trudy doesn't remember and partly because Sturges can't directly reveal the misdeeds of a young, drunken family girl. 
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To make a very long and very convoluted story short, Trudy finally realizes that not only did she remember marrying one of the soldiers, but she's pregnant. Together, she and Norval must find a way out of this predicament, which eventually will lead them up against the law. 
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It's well know that Sturges' films are like a student cramming for the exam that's twenty minutes away - dense, furious, nearly incomprehensible - but "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" is without a doubt his wildest ride.
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But wild for wild's sake would not a good movie make, for Sturges elevates the bare essentials of the material by injecting his self-referential and googly dialogue, abrasive small-town virtues gone amiss (a drunken marriage, out-of-wedlock pregnancy) and all at the expense of American soldiers on their way to the front - how's that for ya, censors?
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Now Sturges brilliantly frames the film around a certain telephone conversation (involving two townspeople speaking to two state officials, cameo appearances by Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff, reprising their roles from "The Great McGinty") in which the point is made clear that something newsworthy or revelatory is going to happen. "You won't believe it," the men claim, and we wait patiently for the unbelievable.
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Well I'm not going to spoil the ending - the eponymous miracle - but it's perhaps the wackiest final card that Sturges has ever played at the end of his films, easily the most ironic punch-line of his career. [B+]

Wrapping Up 2010

I don't want to speak for everyone, but with the inevitability of last night's Oscar winners, an uneven, slapdash production and two hosts so unrelentingly misguided in their efforts, the show quickly took on the task of becoming insufferable.
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In a telecast primed to reap in the eagerly attainable "younger demographic" (what with the choice of hosts and all) the first presenter to take the stage was 94 year-old Kirk Douglas. Look, I love the guy - God bless him - but who thought this was a great idea?   
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And then the rest of the night took on the theme of "honoring" Oscar history with black-and-white clips, a shape-shifting stage, presenters in white tuxedos. Billy Crystal even came out to honor Bob Hope in a presentation that only further emphasized what an actual Oscar host should be. 
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James Franco and Anne Hathaway actually surpassed my expectations - they were far worse than I thought they'd be. From the opening parody video (thanks for the idea, Billy!) things went downhill in a hurry. 
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Franco stood stone-faced and disinterested while Hathaway hollered and over-clapped at everyone she introduced and neither of them had anything funny to say. The former came out in drag and the latter belted out a song about the overly-featured Hugh Jackman spurning her for a duet and both gags did nothing but attract a swarm of crickets. 
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And just when I couldn't imagine things getting worse, out trots a Brooklyn kids choir to sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" with all of the Oscar winners marching out for the crescendo, Hathaway high-fiving them as the telecast mercifully came to an end. 
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In a night so sheepishly reassuring and timid, it's fitting that "The King's Speech," the warm snuggie of the ten Best Picture nominees, walked away the big winner. So you didn't like Ricky Gervais? You got your jerk-off session, Hollywood. 

Preston Sturges #5: "The Palm Beach Story" (1942)

Throughout the first four films in this series, we've seen Preston Sturges lean heavily on the various inconsistencies of big business, the movie industry and class differences, but never before has he dwelled on the paranoia, jealousy and outright hypocrisy of marriage as he does here in "The Palm Beach Story". 

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Like a sassier, edgier "The Awful Truth," the film takes a cheekily broken marriage at the on-set, sends the two partners to sample the alternatives, then finally (to no surprise) brings them back together. 

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As is commonplace amongst the many comedies of Preston Sturges, the dialogue is swift and sharp-witted and the sexual innuendo barefaced and painfully honest. Claudette Colbert plays Gerry, a frustrated but sympathetic wife to the struggling Tom (played by Joel McCrea) who insists a divorce is the only way to treat her penniless existence as she is courted by a rich tycoon in transit to Palm Beach. 

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In many ways, the film is a critique of class roles, not unlike "Christmas in July" in the way it examines the futility of monetary or professional success or "Sullivan's Travels"  in how the rich view the weak. 

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Sturges was familiar with the allure of aristocratic beauty, seeing as how one of his many ex-wives, Eleanor Hutton, was an heiress who ran in circles of high society herself, so far as to even be wooed by Prince Jerome Rospigliosi-Gioeni. (This can be clearly seen in the character played by Mary Astor, a silly rich playgirl and sister to John D. Hackensacker, Gerry's wealthy courter.)

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And indeed much of Sturges' work was based on fact or personal experience (which could perhaps explain why so much of it is downright clinical in its honesty), even the wacky train sequence, in which the Quail and Ale Club are unhitched from the remaining cabins en route, is based partly on first-hand experience.

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In the end, Sturges' suggested pessimism loses out again to an ironic ending, although this one manages to be frightfully silly. Still though, "The Palm Beach Story" serves as a frenzied segue into Sturges later works, which would examine small-town hypocrisy and yet again, the oncoming threats of infidelity. [B]

Preston Sturges #4: "Sullivan's Travels" (1942)

When looking at a film like “Sullivan’s Travels,” not just a daring satire of the movie industry but a window into the mind and thoughts of its creator, it’s impossible to know where to begin the discussion when it’s a work that operates on so many levels – a journey of self-discovery, a parody of class roles, an unlikely romance, etc.

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Having said that, I think it’s appropriate – unavoidable, really – to call “Sullivan’s Travels”, a film about a movie director who undergoes a career crisis, the most personal film in Sturges’ celebrated filmography.

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It’s natural to approach John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), the titular director who puts aside his rudderless existence as a maker of musical comedies to take on a life of hardship in an effort to research his new “commentary on modern conditions”, as Sturges himself. After all, this a man who makes a madcap farce out of conceivably every possible social dilemma.

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What’s so brilliant about “Sullivan’s Travels” is just how self-aware and slyly critical the film is not just towards the movie industry in general (in particular the ongoing debate between commercialism vs. art) but towards the way the upper class perceives their role towards the low and needy. As the character Burrows (played by Robert Greig) says, “the poor know all about poverty and only the morbid rich would find the topic glamorous.”

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So out of the studio and into the railyards goes John L. Sullivan to find the meaning of hardship, but only under the supervision of a trailer full of on-the-job babysitters. After a wacky attempt to escape, Sullivan soon loses his tail and picks up a companion, the glamorous but hard-luck actress, played by Veronica Lake.

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Such an odd pairing provides Sturges the opportunity not only to comment on the banality of Hollywood stereotypes, but to write one of the better lines in his career: “How does the girl fit into the picture?” a policeman asks. “There’s always a girl in the picture. What’s the matter? Don’t you go to the movies?”

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This exchange is traded at a Beverly Hills Police Station, one of the many times that Sullivan hilariously winds up back in Hollywood, as if unseen forces are warning him to drop the hobo routine for good. Eventually, fed up with sleeping on crowded floors, he does decide to head back to the comforts of his mansion, only to be bizarrely mistaken for dead after a botched robbery.

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It’s here, when Sullivan finds himself on a chain gang and unable to contact his Hollywood brethren, that Sturges turns the film on its ear, slowing things down so as to heighten the desperation of Sullivan’s homeward quest to restore sanity.

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In another movie, the last act might have been more of a drag, but Sturges’ sure-handed direction, including the beautiful church entrance scene set to “Go Down, Moses,” provides a smooth transition. It’s here where Sullivan, after witnessing a jumble of deadbeat prisoners and African-American churchgoers erupt in laughter at the sight of a cartoon, realizes that sometimes making people laugh isn’t a shameful role to play after all.

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And although this message of self-justification applies to both Sullivan and Sturges, and although it’s not something I wholeheartedly agree with, it’s a masterful stroke of ingenuity to see a filmmaker so willingly lay out all of his doubts and anxieties on the record and to do so with such verve and panache.

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Plus, I think Sturges is selling himself short – his films aren’t merely cartoons of physical comedy and broad laughs. In his case, a maker of films both socially relevant and breathlessly funny, he can have his cake and eat it too. [A-]

Preston Sturges #3: "The Lady Eve" (1941)

Preston Sturges takes a step away from his working-class social concerns and makes the transition into high society hypocrisy with his next three films, the first being one of the director’s most celebrated achievements: the furious, sexy and pungent screwball comedy, “The Lady Eve”.

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Granted an unusually generous budget and a decisive voice in casting, the film truly announced Sturges’ arrival into the Hollywood mainstream – glitzy gowns, glamorous stars, animated title sequences – and thus changed the face of comedy forever.

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Imbuing his titillating sense of irony and madcap dialogue, “The Lady Eve” also marked Sturges’ foray into daring sexuality, as Barbara Stanwyck, midriff exposed, runs her hands through the head of Henry Fonda, whispering softly into his ear as she does so. (Pretty soon, Claudette Colbert would be plopping down in the lap of Joel McCrea in “The Palm Beach Story”.)

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Of course, Stanwyck, playing the titular seductress, has no problem convincing the clumsy, book smart Fonda (nor the audience) of her intentions on a swanky ocean liner. Although, as soon as she surprises herself with her sympathies, he’s uncovered the trap – a money-grubbing scheme over a game of crooked cards. (Charles Coburn plays her father, a card sharp himself, who is just a piece in one of the most impressive comedic supporting casts ever assembled, including Sturges’ mainstay William Demarest, Eric Blore, Eugene Pallette and Melville Cooper.)

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But naturally, she’s not done with him yet, re-introducing herself in his home as the “Lady Eve Sidwich,” bent on taking care of some “finished business”. He instantly recognizes her, but his self-doubt (and “Eve’s” put-on, playful English accent) keeps him from fully committing to the idea.

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She follows through on her part of the con, convincing poor Pike (Fonda) into a marriage before pulling the rug out from under him on a train, casually rifling through her various flings with men in a wonderful little montage. (“Cecil?” he asks. “It’s pronounced Ce-cil,” she corrects, a clear reference, I believe, to Paramount’s own Cecil B. DeMille.)

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Of course, the obvious resemblance between “Eve” and plain old “Jean” back on the boat is Sturges’ last ingredient in this hectic, farcical stew of identity, mixed signals and the absurdity of love – he wouldn’t have it any other way. [B+]

Preston Sturges #2: "Christmas in July" (1940)

Beginning with a crackling opening scene between a young couple on a rooftop, it’s clear that “Christmas in July” is a Preston Sturges film. In fact, the way the two casually yet forcefully gnaw at each other’s every word (with the young man’s intellectual bullying taking center stage), you’d think this was “The Social Network”.

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He is Jimmy MacDonald (Dick Powell), a white-collar clerk suffering in the confines of his low-end job and she is Betty Casey (Ellen Drew), the girl just trying to keep up. After entering the Maxford Coffee slogan content, which pays $25,000 to the winner, Jimmy’s puzzling pun of an entry has him convinced he’s winning it.

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When an unintentionally elaborate prank gives him the grand prize money, Jimmy finds his ideas, once fallen on deaf ears, now brilliant pieces of copy. After just a few hours, he’s even given an office with his name on the door.

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Sturges is so comfortable with this kind of rapidly paced, big business satire (the executives of the various fictional coffee corporations are particularly dim-witted), but the real ingenuity comes with the director’s finely-tuned monologues on class structure, which bravely skirt the edge between cynicism and optimism in the climate of Depression era America.

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And that’s the difference between a Frank Capra film and Preston Sturges one. The former made some fine socially relevant entertainments – “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” “You Can’t Take it With You,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” – but Capra’s view of big city corruption meets small town all-American spirit is naively idealistic. Sturges’ films, on the other hand, are far more wily and manic and suggestive in their skepticism.

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In “Christmas in July,” perhaps the ultimate Sturges film in terms of a retrospective culmination of everything that makes up the director’s filmography, he crafts a funny, droll yet contemplative farce about lower-class values and opportunity and he does so at a brisk 67 minutes, which includes his trademark touch of irony to close the show. [B+] 

Preston Sturges #1: "The Great McGinty" (1940)

Becoming increasingly fed-up with wallowing in the unpredictability of studio screenwriting, the then 42 year-old Preston Sturges sold the script for “The Great McGinty” for a mere $10 to Paramount so long as he was allowed to direct the film himself.

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The story of a rise-and-fall bum-turned-politician, “The Great McGinty” is far more social drama than satire, examining the ugliness of corrupt government officials through one man’s meteoric rise to the Governor’s chair (the title character, played by Brian Donlevy).

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Told in flashback from an undisclosed barroom over a few drinks, the film hardly glamorizes or preaches the virtues of standing up to dirty politics in the public domain a la Frank Capra’s wonderfully idealistic “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (1939). No, according to Sturges, doing so will only get you a kick in the teeth and a low-end job serving beers from one flame-out to another.

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“The Great McGinty” unfolds like an early 30’s Warner Bros. gangster film – grisly, succinct, cautionary – and it ends with our hero doomed not by his present day good intentions, but by his dirty past, consisting of beating up store owners late on their payments and fixing city elections.

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But Mr. Sturges brings rare warmth to McGinty’s transformation in the relationship between he and his wife Catherine (Muriel Angelus), who at first is merely just a political partner before slowly winning his heart. These scenes are touching, thoughtful character moments that bring heartache to the film’s conclusion, including a touching farewell phone call from husband to wife in the final reel.

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If there is one thing to say about "The Great McGinty" it's that Sturges' penchant for satirizing condemnable social inconsitencies, in this rare instance, feels slightly off-kilter. At times, the film plays like a tragic satire, sliding in-and-out rather uncomfortably between solemn misfortune and political lampooning.

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It wouldn’t take Sturges long to find his satirical groove (his films quickly grew more feverish and wily), but as it stands, “The Great McGinty” is a modest, heartfelt and cleverly topical debut that won Sturges his first screenplay Oscar at the 1941 ceremony, the first award ever handed out to the now segregated “Original Screenplay” category. [B-]
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Paramount Pictures; 83 mins.