WACKY WEDDED BLISS

By Raymond Benson

Preston Sturges was a rare breed in Hollywood in the early 1940s—he was a writer/director auteur who penned original comedies and directed them himself. Perhaps Chaplin—and Keaton, to a degree—were the only other filmmakers up to that point who did the same, picture after picture. Sturges began as a screenwriter authoring some of Hollywood’s better comedies of the late ‘30s; finally, he told Paramount he would sell them his script for The Great McGinty only if they allowed him to direct it. The studio bosses relented when Sturges took a cut in salary to do both jobs. McGinty was a hit and went on to win a screenplay Oscar for Sturges. Then, during the war years, Sturges enjoyed his remarkable run before succumbing, in the later years of the decade, to the inevitable “falling out of fashion” that so often occurs in Tinsel Town.

Sturges’ comedy is sophisticated, intelligent, and witty; but it’s also wacky, off the wall, and spitfire fast. He specialized in screwball comedy—i.e., absurdly zany love stories between two likable but eccentric characters—and The Palm Beach Story, released in 1942, is a prime example. Following his masterpiece (but, at the time, misunderstood and not well received financially) Sullivan’s Travels, Palm Beach stars Joel McCrea (“Tom”) and Claudette Colbert (“Gerri”—Tom and Gerri, get it?) as an unhappily married couple who split up and ultimately get back together. Classic screwball comedy structure. What makes the film different from other screwball comedies is what happens in-between. And at the beginning.

Ah, the beginning. Over the main title credits, we see a series of strange clips that appear to be taken from later in the picture—but they’re not. In fact, they’re never really explained at all, which does cause some confusion with the audience. This opening has been debated by film scholars ever since the movie’s release. It’s actually exposition, but cut down to brief snippets of visuals, edited to the tune of a rollicking William Tell Overture. We see a maid frightened by an imposing figure—she faints. A concerned priest is at the altar, looking at his watch. We see Colbert, tied up and gagged in a closet. And then we see Colbert in a wedding dress, rushing to get ready? Is she the same Colbert as before? After that we discover McCrea in wedding garb rushing to get in a car—obviously late for the ceremony. But in the car he changed into another set of wedding clothes. The bridal Colbert runs by the maid, who screams and faints again. The tied and gagged Colbert breaks out of her binds and kicks her way out of the closet. The recovering maid sees her, screams, and faints. Then the parties rush to the chapel—where McCrea and Colbert (which one?) get married. The caption reads: “And they lived happily ever after... or did they?”

We don’t really find out what was going on in the credits until the end of the movie in a somewhat contrived but typically Sturges-style explanation of what’s been going on in the picture. It’s not a spoiler to reveal that Colbert plays twin sisters, but McCrea also plays twin brothers. The two sisters are in love with one of the McCrea twins (not “Tom”), and he is about to marry the one who is not named Gerri. However, Gerri has tied up her sister and taken her place at the altar—but somehow “Tom” has taken his brother’s place at the chapel—and Tom and Gerri—the wrong couple—get married. At least that’s how I interpret it.

After five years of marriage, Tom and Gerri are at each other’s throats (but they really do love each other, they just don’t realize it yet). Gerri leaves for Palm Beach and Tom follows her. Gerri begins a relationship with billionaire Rudy Vallee, and Tom is snared by Vallee’s maneating sister, Mary Astor, and then things really get complicated.

Throw in Sturges’ standard stock company of character extras—William Demarest, Sig Arno, Robert Dudley, Franklin Pangborn, Arthur Hoyt, Chester Conklin, Jimmy Conlin, Robert Warwick, and several others (all faces you will recognize but won’t know their names) and you’ve got one crazy oddball of a movie. And it’s marvelous.

Criterion’s 4K digital restoration looks gorgeous, as always (how does Criterion manage to get the best-looking presentations of black and white classic films on Blu-ray?). There are two new video interviews with (a) writer and film historian James Harvey about Sturges and his works, and (b) comedian and actor Bill Hader, also about Sturges and the picture. A WW2 propaganda film, written by Sturges for the State Department, Safeguarding Military Information, is included (and features Sturges regular Eddie Bracken). A 1943 radio adaptation by Screen Guild Theater is also included, plus the informative essay by critic Stephanie Zacharek in the booklet.

It’s too bad that Preston Sturges’ flame burnt out by the end of the forties—he was a talent that was often miles ahead—and above—his peers. The Palm Beach Story, while perhaps not his best work, is certainly indicative of the man’s genius.

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