Skip to main content

The Palm Beach Story

  • Director: Preston Sturges
  • Year: 1942
  • Run-time: 1 hr 28 min
- Like The Lady Eve, this is another left field spin on the screwball comedy formula, with the story centering on the lead couple getting a divorce. Class plays a big role as always, but this time around both of the leads are lower class, with the range of characters they meet along the journey being all upper echelon. So far, Sturges' films have great, wily female leads (I think the screwball genre as a whole was a tremendous one for great early actresses), with male leads forced to play catch-up as much as they can.

- The class struggle edge here is certainly pretty blunt, with the rich suitor being clueless but entirely well-meaning. We're actually led to feel pretty bad about how he's been duped (the film takes a "no harm, no foul" stance). If I have a complaint about this film (which I enjoyed all the way through), I do wish the film was willing to make fun of the millionaires a bit more.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bringing Up Baby

Director: Howard Hawks Year: 1938 Run-time: 1 hr 42 min - Bringing Up Baby  is in my mind the epitome of the screwball comedy, and probably its finest example.  Hepburn and Grant are just so perfect in their roles, and the level of constant absurdity gets to the point where it overrides any cultural datedness and just becomes fun.  (The main exception is the Irish stereotype, but given that he is justified in how he behaves, it's excusable.)  I was a bit shocked to discover that this was not a commercial success, and indeed almost ruined Hepburn's career (she had the most to lose, given how novel her quirky performance is). - Looking back at the three screwballs so far on this list, it never occurred to me before how the genre seems to rely on a rich and "privileged" female lead to be the one to challenge and emasculate the male lead.  Perhaps that was the acceptable way to present it to a depression-era audience?
Post a Comment
Read more

The Cat Concerto

Directors: William Hanna and Joseph Barbera Year: 1947 I'm sure it's no coincidence that music plays such a strong role in many of the animated films featured on the list. By this point, there's nothing especially novel about this Tom and Jerry  short by another great animation studio led by Hanna and Barbera, except that the execution is so spot-on. This is eight minutes of pure delight. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Partie de campagne (A Day In the Country)

Director: Jean Renoir Year: 1936 Run-time: 40 min - You can tell that French film is thriving in 1936 by the fact that a film by Renoir is the worst of the last three on the list.  (Renoir has two 1936 films on the list - and other classics from this year that didn't make the cut.)  That's only really due to its brevity, and the fact that it wasn't properly finished due to extenuating circumstances.  What exists is still pretty excellent - putting the elegant but slight story aside, it's Renoir's ode to the natural world, which never quite came through before due to the bluntness of 1930's cinematography.  In fact, it's the only Renoir film I've seen in which he channels something of his father's eye for natural beauty (a fact he alludes to himself in a later commentary he gave on the film).
Post a Comment
Read more