Saturday night I watched Wisconsin beat up on Nebraska and earn a third straight trip to the Rose Bowl, but during commercial breaks clicked over to Turner Classic Movies, which was showing Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels. It had been a long time since I had seen it, and I was reminded of what a wonderful film it is. Not one of Sturges’ laugh-out-loud funniest (that would be either The Miracle at Morgan’s Creek or the first half of The Lady Eve), but still amazingly witty and, more importantly, humane. The movie is ultimately about the importance and power of laughter and, if you haven’t seen it, you should put it in your Netflix queue so that you can rectify that oversight as soon as possible.
Speaking of Netflix, the latest movie in my queue was The Shop Around the Corner, which I happened to watch last night. The director was Ernst Lubitsch, who was a friendly Hollywood and comic rival of Sturges’ in the 1940s. In fact, there is a running joke in Sullivan’s Travels, where the character obviously based on Sturges himself promises to get a struggling Hollywood actress (played brilliantly by Veronica Lake) an audition with Lubitsch. The Shop Around the Corner features one of Jimmy Stewart’s best performances (yes, I know what a claim that is) as well as charming turns by Margaret Sullivan, Frank Morgan (who also played the wizard in The Wizard of Oz), and a host of other, long-forgotten actors.
Not to be judgmental, but if you want to see how much the moral universe of Hollywood has changed, watch these two sophisticated 1940s comedies on back-to-back nights, then go out and watch any current release. It was bracing to see Sturges and Lubitsch on successive nights and realize their comedic successors are Judd Apatow and the Farrelly Bros -both of whom I often like. Still, the decline in intelligence and sophistication between either of these classics and “Dumb and Dumber” is obvious and more than a little depressing.
So true, Larry. Apatow’s films often convey decent values–which I was the first critic to point out, several years ago in a review of Wedding Crashers, as it happens–but they can be tough to watch if you’ve already had your fill of vulgarity and juvenility.
The Shop Around the Corner is one of Lubitsch’s warmest and most likable films. He made so many classics that I can only recommend that readers take a flyer on most of them. They won’t be disappointed. It would be good to start with Shop, Trouble in Paradise, and Ninotchka, I think. The Lubitsch Touch was famous in Golden-era Hollywood, as this German emigre had a way of slyly making points through subtle visual cues that conveyed wit and (something that is less widely understood among film historians) suggested a moral judgment without bitterness or even making the consciously viewer aware that such a judgment was being conveyed.
Sturges’ films are all excellent except for the last, the one starring Betty Hutton. He was a brilliant screenwriter, and one of his best scripts is on display in the film Remember the Night, ably directed by Mitchell Leisen, which will be shown a week from this Wednesday at 9:45 EST on Turner Classic Movies. It’s a splendid Christmas film with just the right sentiments and no sentimentality. The theme of sin and redemption is explicit and handled with some sophistication, and the performances are superb, as tends to be the case with Sturges’ films.
In my view, Sturges’s funniest film is The Palm Beach Story.
Sam, did you mean Betty Grable, not Betty Hutton? Betty Hutton was the star of “The Miracle at Morgan’s Creek” and Betty Grable the star of Sturges’ last film, “The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend.” Wouldn’t want readers to get confused and not rent “Morgan’s Creek” which, as I implied above, remains my favorite Sturges film.
You are so right about Sturges’ brilliance as a screenwriter. One example of Sturges’ clever wordplay is the title that he proposed for his autobiography: “A Brief Account of the Events Leading Up to My Death.” Unfortunately his publisher refused and simply called it Preston Sturges.
You’re right, Larry–I was referring to The Beautiful Blonde of Bashful Bend, which is watchable but by no means on a level with his other films. Miracle is brilliant. Sturges was a truly intelligent and sophisticated man, with a sense of humor. In today’s United States he would undoubtedly be sent directly to the gallows.
Amen, LK and STK. Just watched Sullivan’s Travels for what seemed like the 450th time over the weekend (although one wishes TCM would jettison Drew Barrymore from the commentator’s chair). The film always impresses and entertains. Like STK, I prefer the straight-up comedies Palm Beach Story and Miracle… (as well as The Great McGinty, Christmas in July, Hail the Conquering Hero…you get the point). Anyway, hadn’t realized Sturges wrote the screenplay for Remember the Night, which I haven’t seen since the 1970s. Can’t wait to reacquaint myself. Thanks for the tip!
Glad to be of service, Bruce. I’m happy that you mentioned The Great McGinty. It’s an interesting film for Sturges in that it is the first one he directed but is rather uncharacteristic of his films: the story is straightforward and the humor quite restrained. In fact, there isn’t much laugh-out-loud funny stuff in the film at all, as I recall. Sturges’s view of politics is what makes the film truly great. His view is so incisive and accurate that one could quite profitably base one’s political education on The Great McGinty. The film’s exposing of the utter corruption that characterizes urban progressive politics is something from which people today, in particular, could learn much of value.
As a side note, it’s interesting to see the similarities to The Glass Key, which Paramount produced two years after McGinty, In fact, not only was it done at the same studio, it was produced by Buddy DeSylva, Sturges’s producer (whom he despised as a philistine ignoramus, with good cause). The films look extremely similar visually, and the plotlines have many points of similarity. The two films also share major themes and character types. Hammett’s novel appeared in 1931, nine years before Sturges’s film, and the latter can be seen as a libertarian-conservative view of the subject matter of Hammett’s book. The studio then was evidently inspired to make a film based on the book. Sturges’s film is the best and most intelligent of the three, by a good measure.
Bruce, I’m with you on Drew Barrymore as a commenter. As distasteful as I find Alec Baldwin personally, I thought he was a pretty insightful commenter (and he’s a great comic actor – too bad he’s such an awful human being).