Classic movie site with rare images, original ads, and behind-the-scenes photos, with informative and insightful commentary. We like to have fun with movies!
Archive and Links
grbrpix@aol.com
Search Index Here




Monday, October 21, 2019

Where Genius Had a Price Tag


Home Front Comedy's Best Friend

I’m at last evolved to a point of liking Preston Sturges. Despite previous complaints of him, something whispered that it was not Sturges’ failing, but mine. Having re-watched most of the Paramount comedies, his greatness finally is plain, but to that add this: Sturges as onscreen funny is matched by fascination with the offscreen man whose luck ran calamitous as any H’wood artist achieving status, and then losing it. I still don’t fully understand how fate could have dealt Sturges such ruin. Did vultures sit in wait for a first slip, and then swoop? Like Orson Welles, Sturges a lot like Welles, there was genius talk, behavior to relish the crown, then collapse the outcome of hubris reckless-displayed. Reading books (the best by James Curtis, plus auto-bio notes Sturges’ widow assembled) made me want to call back decades and say, No, Preston, don’t speak so much truth to power. But to flip side of coin, Sturges had much insight to life, understood reality of people … how else would his pictures be so fine? He could be humble too, sadly where too late being so. There was his last meeting with Paramount heads, them resolved to keep him on humiliating terms or not at all, either OK because they were fed up, and Sturges, alone in this front office arena, begging to salvage the job and place he called home (“I love Paramount!,” to cold response). If ever I wanted a happier dreamland ending, here was it, but not to be. Why couldn’t Sturges the gifted scribe compose a happier life story for himself?


Among Paramount Comedies Not the Brain-Children of Preston Sturges ...


Sturges with Veronica Lake
Was any artist, writing and directing, more valued by an industry than one who over and over delivered great comedy? Think of those that did. Not many, but herewith a few from decades at respective peak: Chaplin in the teens (his summit an ongoing one), Lubitsch for the 20’s and beyond, Capra as 30’s supreme creator, then Sturges, who for wartime years had no peer. His was the Big Brass Band, noisy sure, but wasn’t most of home front humor? To successors, I’ll name Wilder for the 50’s, maybe Blake Edwards in the 60’s, and … Mel Brooks with the 70’s? Do please nominate others, or alert me if I’ve left someone out (not forgetting Keaton and Lloyd, but they weren’t credited for full creative oversee until later scholarship outed them). Anyone with sense knew Sturges was something utterly fresh at humor, plus heart, slapstick, sophistication. They hadn’t seen miracles like his wrought since It Happened One Night. Sturges was around long enough never to be an overnight sensation, so there was no calling him an upstart, dues paid over a decade writing for others to interpret. Sturges made a gift of his directing debut (The Great McGinty) as demonstration of ability to Paramount, knowing they’d pay dear once he clicked, that a foregone conclusion so far as Sturges saw it.




Sturges worked like a hound, needed (he said) but four hours sleep a night, and did initial features in less time, and for less money, than Para was otherwise resigned to. McGinty was liked, Christmas In July behind it, both profitable. Critics knew oil had been struck, Sturges as back-of-camera “star” more colorful than personalities he wrote for and directed. The Lady Eve was among bigger noises of 1941, as revolutionary laugh-wise as magic conjured by Welles and Citizen Kane from a same year. Paramount understood for comparative lame-ness of humor they otherwise sent forth. Look sometime at Skylark, also from them in 1941(TCM has used it, and in HD). You might be amused, no doubt would be, given time travel to a first-run house hosting hundreds, but Skylark is small beer beside The Lady Eve, this no secret then, let alone now. Racing horse that was Sturges left a Mark Sandrich or Mitchell Leisen at start gates, Para stars known for comedy at their best advantage working for him. Sturges got brasher as he advanced upward, Sullivan’s Travels stops-out when silly, somber where its writer-director went off comedy’s preserve to try something new. Folks arriving in a final third (lots did in days where it didn’t matter what time you showed up at theatres) figured Sullivan's for melodrama, which to showmen meant Buyer Beware. Complaints told Paramount, and Sturges, that there was limit to innovation.




Sturges knew he wasn’t infallible, at least from hindsight: “The ending wasn’t right, but I didn’t know how to solve the problem … There was probably a way of doing it, but I didn’t happen to come across it. It might be profitable for a young director to look at Sullivan’s Travels and try not to make the same mistakes I did.” These were words dictated years past the fall, when Sturges wrestled with reasons why he lost it all. “Mistakes,” in say, the mid or late 50’s, would read as bold foresight by those watching Sullivan’s Travels from 60’s-forward vantage. Sturges' mood flip would be admired, imitated, by filmmakers later. What was Bonnie and Clyde but bank robbers on a cross-country, Sullivan-like spree? We are less shocked by sudden shifts because Sturges laid a template, one with more influence than the writer/director could appreciate during his lifetime (Sturges died in 1959). Of immediate copiers, there were plenty. I wonder if George Stevens’ The More The Merrier would have sprouted without Sturges’ films ahead of it.




How do we know if a thing is funny, or not, without an audience to confirm it? Most film mavens watch alone, or with one or two doing them the favor of accompany. I looked at No Time For Love this week to compare a boilerplate Paramount comedy with what Sturges was doing for them. It had Claudette Colbert with Fred MacMurray, and was directed by Leisen. I laughed --- alone in the room I laughed --- so guessed this was a riot in 1943. No Time For Love was scribed by four of Para personnel, according to credits, hardly product of a single creative force. Studios functioned best in this way, no one man indispensable to steady outflow of commercial product. Sturges, like other wunderkinds, was more than vague threat to those the system could take or leave, which in Hollywood, as in life, was just about everyone, Sturges a bigger talent than any, and he knew it. Just that was enough to seal his fate. Any little thing that went wrong became a big thing. Sturges’ fifth project was an unpopular idea about the man who developed anesthetic. Called Triumph Over Pain, Paramount let Sturges make it, then took the negative (their option under the contract), and shredded near-whole of what the writer-director did. He begged to be allowed to fix the mess for plentiful and eminently sensible reasons. Head man Buddy DeSylva, who appears to have really had it in for Sturges, said no. Triumph Over Pain went out as The Great Moment, which it was not for pay windows. Para brass held Pain/Moment against Sturges even as he delivered roaring hit that was Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, followed by popular Hail The Conquering Hero. Observers had to wonder how Paramount could let such an asset get away. I am yet baffled. There must have been some serious animus at play here.




Sturges Dictates to Secretary Jean Lavell
It’s sad to read of Sturges falling in with head case that was Howard Hughes. Crazy is crazy however much money you have. Sturges had been raised by oddballs, was distinctly one himself, so being duly tolerant of eccentricity, mistook Hughes’ serious unbalance for that. Fault over The Sin of Harold Diddlebock can be shared by Sturges and Hughes, or maybe the idea of Harold Lloyd coming back under Preston Sturges direction was a flawed one. It pleased Sturges to think that he could revive Lloyd’s flavor of comedy; they actually had much in common, even if outcome for Diddlebock was isolated runs, then withdrawal by Hughes, whose property the negative was. Zanuck of Fox came to a rescue, then wished he hadn’t, as Unfaithfully Yours and The Beautiful Blonde of Bashful Bend both lost money. It was figured that Sturges had lost his touch. That happened to funny folk before, and would again (Wilder a 60’s follower-in-decline). I looked for quotes as to what went wrong for Sturges, one theory advanced by Eddie Bracken, who should know: "Preston had a tremendous ego … Most of his hits came when Jean Lavell was his secretary, and she was the only person he really listened to. There’d be a meeting about a project and if he was going overboard, or becoming excessive, which was his tendency, Jean would tell him, “Why don’t you do this or that instead?” and he might argue, but he’d usually do it. Jean played a large part in the success of Sturges’ great movies … When he left Jean and Paramount and went over to Howard Hughes and Fox, his pictures didn’t turn out so well.” So could it have been that simple? A secretary’s quietly moderating voice? Remarkable how so often it is the littlest things that make all the difference. Not saying Bracken was accurate, but he was there, and the rest of us weren’t. Food for thought, whatever the truth.

7 Comments:

Blogger Reg Hartt said...

Well, anyway I look at it, UNFAITHFULLY YOURS is brilliant. As for THE BEAUTIFUL BLONDE FROM BASHFUL BEND, as soon as it became available on DVD I bought it. It ain't shabby.

Who knows what causes an audience not to respond to a great work? Certainly not myself. Buster Keaton's THE GENERAL thudded with the critics and with the public.

As far as I am concerned the best we can do is not try to figure out what we did wrong.

From what I have read Buddy DeSylva had an axe to grind with Sturges that he ought to have laid aside. But then Hollywood has a history of killing the golden goose.

Paramount, saved from bankruptcy by Mae West's first two starring films, then caves into the censors robbing her films of the vitality that made the public respond to them.

I did not know until I read you that THE GREAT MOMENT is not the picture Sturges meant us to see. It's hard to imagine how he could have done it better.

SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS for me is perfect. Did not know there was a problem with the ending. It's right for me and the folks I have shown it to.

Glad you have experienced a change of heart for the better about Sturge's work.

All industries hate genius because genius can't be manufactured on an assembly line.

Product can be. Product is what industries need to survive.

"An art form requires genius. People of genius are always troublemakers, meaning they start from scratch, demolish accepted norms and rebuild a new world. The problem with cinema today is the dearth of troublemakers. There’s not a rabble-rouser in sight. There was still one, but he went beyond troublemaker to court jester. You’ll find students masquerading as bad ones, but you won’t find the real article, because a genuine bad student upends everything."—Henri Langlois.


10:32 AM  
Blogger Kevin K. said...

What I can always depend on in a Sturges movie is one hysterically funny scene that has me laughing like a madman. No other director has that effect on me.

More people should discover "Remember the Night", one of the best Xmas movies ever. Had Sturges directed his own script, it would definitely be considered a classic.

Oh, and "Diddlebock" might be imperfect but is underrated. A restoration is in order.

11:55 AM  
Blogger Dave K said...

Great post! I have often thought Sturges was kinda biographer-proof. Several books, articles and many book chapters about the guy, yet the writers always seem so over-awed with his huge personality and you-can't-make-this-stuff-up life story that they barely do justice to his amazing talent. The Curtis book may be the best, but even his misses the mark for me (and I would rank it as the only outright dud from this otherwise superb writer.) The Donald Spotto bio is particularly offensive; he makes it clear he doesn't think much of Sturges as a director, considers THE LADY EVE a 'meh' and outright hates UNFAITHFULLY YOURS. But, oh, that crazy life story!

Sturges did have a spectacularly fascinating personal life but, for me, it is easily overshadowed by his ability as a writer which, in turn, is eclipsed by his talent as a director. Yes, I think Struges was an even greater director than screenwriter. Look at those early dialogue scenes in SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS and THE PALM BEACH STORY or the mirror sequence in LADY EVE. Fantastic!

Reading contemporary reviews, it's interesting how many critics carped on how the man would seem to start out working on a film using an idea rather a plot. Mind you, they complained about this! I suspect many writers and/or directors were and are most jealous of this facet of his genius. He was constantly coming up with goofy ideas to build on, then working them into stories. In this regard I think the closest recent comparison is Woody Allen. Think of his earlier films like ZELIG, PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO, BROADWAY DANNY ROSE and DECONSTRUCTING HARRY. An apt one sentence description of any of those wouldn't be a plot synopsis but an explanation of their base concepts. Just like THE GREAT McGINTY, THE PALM BEACH STORY or MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK.

Oh, and my favorite? As an old retired advertising hack, of course I'd pick CHRISTMAS IN JULY!

12:06 PM  
Blogger Tom Ruegger said...

"The Palm Beach Story" has one of the greatest endings in comedy movie history.

3:20 PM  
Blogger stinky fitzwizzle said...

Stinky thinks Preston Sturges is a towering genius in Hollywood. Like Tex Avery in the cartoon world, there is no one who really compares.

The demise of Sturges is very sad, probably a combination of bridges burned and Sturges losing his funny, perhaps because he had simply burned himself out, or he had said all he had to say.

Do not know how else Sullivan's Travels could have ended, but that "Gee!" is a little disappointing.

Stinky would take any of Wilder's '60s comedies, except Irma La Douce, over anything Edwards did.

And Stinky would also like to ask Mr. Bracken how many great films Sturges' secretary was associated with after they parted ways. Stinky doubts that Eddie was very close to the creative process.

4:30 PM  
Blogger Reg Hartt said...

It's always good when we can help a kid as it seems this piece has done.

9:21 PM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

Received the following e-mail from Tom Sturges re his father and a book just out, co-written by Tom, with Nick Smedley, and entitled "Preston Sturges: The Last Years of Hollywood's First Writer-Director."


Hey good afternoon...

Wanted to say thank you for all that you had to say. It reads like it took you a while to figure out what PS was all about and why he mattered, and matters still, but it would appear that you did in the end. Better late than never!

I've just written a new book on him that came out in September and I am forwarding a piece about it by Susan King that just published in the LA Times.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2019-10-18/son-famed-director-preston-sturges-searches-dad-he-never-knew

She got the story mostly right, and paid a lot of respect to both of my parents, their tough situation, my co-writer Nick Smedley and me.

The photo is the result of two hours of mayhem with a photographer who could have come out of
central casting and who my dad would have probably liked a lot.

Again, thanks for the well written and well thought out article.

Best and kindest regards,

Tom

10:51 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

grbrpix@aol.com
  • December 2005
  • January 2006
  • February 2006
  • March 2006
  • April 2006
  • May 2006
  • June 2006
  • July 2006
  • August 2006
  • September 2006
  • October 2006
  • November 2006
  • December 2006
  • January 2007
  • February 2007
  • March 2007
  • April 2007
  • May 2007
  • June 2007
  • July 2007
  • August 2007
  • September 2007
  • October 2007
  • November 2007
  • December 2007
  • January 2008
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • August 2008
  • September 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009
  • July 2009
  • August 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • November 2009
  • December 2009
  • January 2010
  • February 2010
  • March 2010
  • April 2010
  • May 2010
  • June 2010
  • July 2010
  • August 2010
  • September 2010
  • October 2010
  • November 2010
  • December 2010
  • January 2011
  • February 2011
  • March 2011
  • April 2011
  • May 2011
  • June 2011
  • July 2011
  • August 2011
  • September 2011
  • October 2011
  • November 2011
  • December 2011
  • January 2012
  • February 2012
  • March 2012
  • April 2012
  • May 2012
  • June 2012
  • July 2012
  • August 2012
  • September 2012
  • October 2012
  • November 2012
  • December 2012
  • January 2013
  • February 2013
  • March 2013
  • April 2013
  • May 2013
  • June 2013
  • July 2013
  • August 2013
  • September 2013
  • October 2013
  • November 2013
  • December 2013
  • January 2014
  • February 2014
  • March 2014
  • April 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2014
  • July 2014
  • August 2014
  • September 2014
  • October 2014
  • November 2014
  • December 2014
  • January 2015
  • February 2015
  • March 2015
  • April 2015
  • May 2015
  • June 2015
  • July 2015
  • August 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2015
  • November 2015
  • December 2015
  • January 2016
  • February 2016
  • March 2016
  • April 2016
  • May 2016
  • June 2016
  • July 2016
  • August 2016
  • September 2016
  • October 2016
  • November 2016
  • December 2016
  • January 2017
  • February 2017
  • March 2017
  • April 2017
  • May 2017
  • June 2017
  • July 2017
  • August 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2017
  • November 2017
  • December 2017
  • January 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2018
  • April 2018
  • May 2018
  • June 2018
  • July 2018
  • August 2018
  • September 2018
  • October 2018
  • November 2018
  • December 2018
  • January 2019
  • February 2019
  • March 2019
  • April 2019
  • May 2019
  • June 2019
  • July 2019
  • August 2019
  • September 2019
  • October 2019
  • November 2019
  • December 2019
  • January 2020
  • February 2020
  • March 2020
  • April 2020
  • May 2020
  • June 2020
  • July 2020
  • August 2020
  • September 2020
  • October 2020
  • November 2020
  • December 2020
  • January 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2021
  • April 2021
  • May 2021
  • June 2021
  • July 2021
  • August 2021
  • September 2021
  • October 2021
  • November 2021
  • December 2021
  • January 2022
  • February 2022
  • March 2022
  • April 2022
  • May 2022
  • June 2022
  • July 2022
  • August 2022
  • September 2022
  • October 2022
  • November 2022
  • December 2022
  • January 2023
  • February 2023
  • March 2023
  • April 2023
  • May 2023
  • June 2023
  • July 2023
  • August 2023
  • September 2023
  • October 2023
  • November 2023
  • December 2023
  • January 2024
  • February 2024
  • March 2024