Created May 24, 2013 11:58PM PST • Updated Apr 26, 2015 07:34PM PST
Preston Sturges famously wrote & directed these classic comedies during a furious five-year burst of activity from `39 to `43.
Four of them have been declared among the 100 funniest movies of all time by the AFI. No argument about the first two, as described below.
Need another reason to view them? The legendary Edith Head’s fabulous costuming.
Is Sturges the greatest writer-director ever? He’s in the conversation.
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Replies
- Great
- 67 Points
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Written but not directed by Sturges |
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Wick
– with 66 Trust Points – rated it
Perfect
 4 Forum Replies
When everybody rates a movie as Five Star, calling it one of the greatest ever made, the stakes are high. Expectations of perfection prevail. Expectations, meet Sullivan's Travels, a perfect Golden Age movie. Sullivan's Travels is a movie about the movies, about comedies mostly, from which an often affecting comedy emerges. Sullivan travels through Depression America, riding the rails and bunking with hobos. Nevermind that he's rich, a big time movie director and all. A Comedy Director no less. His last hit? Ants in Your Pants of 1939! Big hit. He's gonna leave Hollywood … |
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Wick
– with 66 Trust Points – rated it
Great
Discuss
Preston Sturges made RomComs that are funny, sexy, glamorous, clever and sophisticated. The Lady Eve proves the point. It still works three quarters of a century later, especially with the proto-modern Barbara Stanwyck as the minx in the middle of a screwball con-game extraordinaire. Modern audiences shouldn't shy away. Funny, sexy, glamorous, clever and sophisticated never go out of style. |
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Wick
– with 66 Trust Points – rated it
Good
Discuss
The Palm Beach Story hasn't aged well. A Preston Sturges' classic, funny and loaded with iconic style, its heavy-handed comedy sometimes clanks. No? Sue me. I'm into romantic comedies mostly for the comedy, albeit not those with too many pratfalls. More egregiously, the use of "colored" characters in The Palm Beach Story pains enlightened sensibilities. Sturges spins his fantasy about the Rockefellers. John D. and John Jr. each have an unrelated doppelgänger. That way they fill more story space, the elder one a crotchety Park Avenue millionaire happy to give money to a … |
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Wick
– with 66 Trust Points – rated it
Very Good
Discuss
Hail The Conquering Hero is a welcome stop on the Tour de Sturges, even if not one of the best. The Greatest Generation dealt with challenge differently than we 2nd Millenniums do, to put it mildly. Preston Sturges made Hail The Conquering Hero during World War II, right after the Marines lost damn near 10,000 men at Guadalcanal. (A name every spellchecker knows.) Yet his comedy of 1944 places a squad of Marines just back from Guadalcanal in the middle of a screwball comedy about a favorite son with a bad back. It takes balls to be funny in that situation, especially because the w… |
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