Man With A Movie List

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.

Director: Preston Sturges Year: 1941 Run-time: 1 hr 34 min - Sturges was one of the masters of the screwball, and in this early film of his, we already see an inversion of the classic roles. In this one, it's the blank-faced (but excellent) Henry Fonda who's the out-of-touch rich socialite, while Barbara Stanwyck is the fast-talking working-class go-getter (as a con woman, but still). I don't think Stanwyck is quite  as good as Hepburn was in Bringing up Baby, but she's close, and Sturges gives her some excellent lines. (In fact, Sturges was one of the first prominent director/screenwriters.)