Palm Beach Story, The (1942)
Director: Preston Sturges
Starring: Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea
Honors:
Divorce is not a subject to take lightly, but that is
exactly the case in Preston Sturges’ 1942 comedy The Palm Beach Story. Hailed as one of American cinema’s funniest
pictures, this screwball comedy is a fast-paced tale of the most unlikely story
of a married couple at a major crossroads in their relationship. The film is a
typical Preston Sturges comedy with its off-the-wall, fast-talking, never to be
taken seriously humor along with a sprinkle of subject matter censors were
always leery about, sex, to make things seem a like more adult.
The Palm Beach Story
is a screwball romantic comedy about a good natured wife who feels the best
thing to do with her marriage after a few years of being wed is get a divorce,
and her husband who will go to great lengths to stop her. Tom (Joel McCrea) and Gerry (Claudette
Colbert) are a marriage couple who have fallen on hard times financially while having
peculiar unspoken relationship issues. Gerry believes the best thing for both
of them is to get a divorce she begins a trek from New York to Palm Beach,
Florida to do so while Tom attempts to stop her from this crazy idea. While on her journey Gerry begins a
relationship with John D. Hackensacker (Rudy Vallée), a play on J.D.
Rockefeller as one of the richest men in the world. To slow Tom down Gerry
introduces Hackensacker’s man hungry sister Princess Centimillia (Mary Astor)
to Tom as her next possible male trophy. Through much though and effects of
knowing each other so well Tom and Gerry eventually intend to stay together.
They reveal that they have identical twins to who marry Hackensacker and the
Princess in the feature’s screwy conclusion.
From the moment the picture starts rolling you know you are
in for something very different, fast paced, and nutty with action on the
screen that you cannot explain. The film’s opening title sequence plays out
with a series of images with McCrea and Colbert each in two places at once
eventually leading to the alter on their wedding day. Right away the audience
is confused, but you know you are in for a ride. Eventually, for those that are
paying attention, the audience will be able to piece together that the opening
was intended to manifest how the opposite twins ending up marrying each other
after each shared affection for the other’s twins, resulting in the two who had
no feelings for each other ending up at the altar, but are not in love.
Does that make sense? No. Maybe. If yes…Good… moving on.
Preston Sturges proceeds forward and further grabs the attention
of the audience with the subject American viewers seldom herd spoken on screen as
the two main characters talk about the allure of Colbert’s sex appeal. This subject
led to a bit of good fortune for Gerry while Tom misunderstands she was only
talking about appeal and not any physical action of sex. It is a humorous scene
that seizes your attention, because censors of this time usually kept all sex
out of movies, especially the word itself, and here, like inSturges’ Sullivan’s Travels, it is so bluntly
used in a scene that it hits one like a slap in the face. Sturges knew how to
grab audiences as it pulls you right into the tale of Tom and Gerry and their adventure
down the eastern seaboard as one attempts to stop the other from getting a
divorce.
Overall the film is nothing more than a series of
off-the-wall moments where Colbert utilizes her appeal to gain the help of men,
all of whom are a bit outlandish, including hunting club full of men that get
plastered train and fire guns while within their car to prove their skill, or
happening upon one the wealthiest men in the world. McCrea is more or less the
straight man who must pursue Colbert and gets caught up in her eccentric game
along the way. In the end you know they get back together, but you are thrown
so many curveballs that sometimes it makes your head spin. Though It is all in
good humorous fun.
During this period Preston Sturges was expanding his skill
as a filmmaker after being given the chance sit in the director’s chair after
years of being only a screenwriter. His brand of screwy comedy was fast, witty,
yet plot driven, providing a clear story, even though the plot was outlandish
to a point. His humor is refreshing, especially in a time when war was the
forefront news, allowing this feature to be an 88 minute mental vacation from
the worries that lie outside the theater doors.
The cast was very well assemble, each unique in character
design and portrayal. The film’s headliner was the established actress
Claudette Colbert who even at 39 was one of the most prestigious and best paid
actresses of the day, commanding a salary nearly three times her co-star. Joel
McCrea in his second Sturges’ feature gives the performance that is straight
enough make audiences root for him, but with a dash of silly, as he pitches his
idea of airports that are suspended above cities by wire mess screens. Popular
entertainer and actor Rudy Valée appears in his first comedy as the awkward,
yet wealthy man that attempts to make Colbert his own. Playing Vallée’s sister
is the acclaimed Mary Astor who had trouble acting at the amusing pace Struges
needed out of his characters, but does provide a funny performance as the self-appointed
“Princess.”
Form the beginning the studio and Sturges had trouble with
the censors in the making of this feature. The original title “Is Marriage
Necessary?” made the Production Code office nervous with how lightly the
feature played with the ideas of marriage and divorce. The sexually suggestive
dialogue would also be cut back a bit as censors found Struges’ sexual dialogue
to risqué for audiences even though the humor is found in the nature that it
was being misunderstood by McCrea’s character. Furthermore the man-hungry
Princess had her backstory toned down as well with the number of supposed
unsuccessful marriages from an original eight cut to three, plus two annulments.
(A silly, but nice touch there by Sturges)
What The Palm Beach
Story leaves as a legacy is one of the more humorous films from this period
of American cinema. Writer/Director Preston Sturges was bringing with him a new
kind of silliness to Hollywood as his motion pictures were just pure entertainment
that audiences loved to go see. The Palm
Beach Story would find itself on many all-time lists amongst the best
comedies in history including the American Film Institute’s list of top 100
American comedies, released in 2000.
Contemporary audiences should give thanks to Sturges and
films like these as they inspired future generations with expanding on the
genre of screwball comedies by allowing them to be funny with a sense of being
grounded at the same time. With word play, intelligent writing, some physical comedy,
and sound structure this feature stands strong amongst the more serious dramas
of that time to last generations later in the minds of audiences, critics, and
filmmakers alike.
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment