Preston Sturges at Paramount

Preston Sturges holds a unique place in the history of American cinema.

In 1940, he would become the first writer to get the chance to direct his own script.

Today, there would be nothing unusual about this at all, but in 1940, this was positively groundbreaking.

There had been writer-directors before Sturges, certainly, but they had achieved the ability to direct their own scripts in reverse: starting as directors, and becoming involved in the scripting of their own films.

Sturges had begun his career writing Broadway plays, and subsequently came to Hollywood, where he toiled as a screenwriter, often uncredited, on such films as The Invisible Man and Imitation of Life. It was with comedy that Sturges would make his mark; in 1937, he wrote the script for Easy Living, which – although directed by Mitchell Leisen (a competent craftsman, but not the stylist that Sturges was) – bears the trademark Sturges wit through and through. It was just a short step from that to directing his first film just three years later.

Sturges remains one of the most important figures in American screen comedy. Between 1940 and 1944, he would turn out a series of films for Paramount Pictures that were simply unequaled for their consistently clever dialogue, smart direction, and expert performances.

The story of Preston Sturges remains an inspiration to filmmakers seeking to make their voice heard, and to put their vision on the screen.

When asked, by Paramount studio executives, why he wanted to direct, Sturges replied that he wanted to be a “prince of the blood”.

He sold his script, The Great McGinty, to Paramount for just one dollar, on condition that he could direct. A year before Orson Welles made Citizen Kane, this was quite an unconventional arrangement. Fortunately for Paramount (and for Sturges), the results were more than worth it, as The Great McGinty emerged as an auspicious directorial debut for the writer, tackling a “big” theme – political corruption – with wit and satire.

Sturges followed the film up later that year with Christmas in July. A relatively short (67 minute) picture, this one told the story of a struggling ad writer, played by Dick Powell, who is tricked into believing he’s won a contest for coming up with the memorable advertising slogan, “If you can’t sleep at night, it’s not the coffee – it’s the bunk!” Like so many advertising slogans, it makes sense if you try not to think about it too much…

This delightfully quick-paced film proved that Sturges wasn’t a one-hit wonder.

His next film, however, would prove that he was not only a gifted comic filmmaker, but that he was capable of delivering a film that could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the finest comedies the screen had ever produced. The Lady Eve may be Sturges’ finest hour (though fans and critics alike all seem to have their personal favorites!) Starring the incomparable Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda, the film tells the story of Charles Pike, heir to a brewing fortune (“Pike’s Pale”) who spends his time on expeditions to South America. On the ship home, he is seduced by a con artist, falling head over heals in love with her, but eventually a falling out tears them apart. In most comedies, this is where things would end. But Sturges is just getting started. Stanwyck returns to Fonda’s life, posing as an entirely different character (a wealthy British type), and proceeds to turn his life upside down! As crazy as it sounds, Sturges and his cast manage to put it over perfectly.

He would follow this film up with the one that is most frequently cited as one of the best comedies ever produced.

It’s quite a reputation for any film to live up to, but Sullivan’s Travels, from late 1941, does not disappoint. Sturges takes a somewhat self-reflexive look at the role of the director in this film, through the character of John L. Sullivan, played by Joel McCrea. Sullivan is tired of making hit after bland hit for his studio, so he decides to set out and experience real life, in order to be better qualified to make an important message picture called “O Brother Where Art Thou?” Life on the mean streets is more far more difficult than Sullivan could have imagined, and after he’s imprisoned on false charges of striking a transit employee, has a revelation. One night, along with the rest of the chain gang on which he’s serving time, he is ushered in to a movie screening at a church hall, whose congregation has agreed to share their space with the convicts for the evening. In this unlikely communal setting, Sullivan witnesses the cathartic laughter provided by a Disney cartoon, reducing the chain gang inmates and church congregation to a laughing spell. Once he finally clears his name and returns to Hollywood, Sullivan sees comedy as his true purpose, to bring happiness to millions around the world who need it most.

The film tackles some heavy themes for what is essentially a screwball comedy, and moves between manic highs and depressive lows with lightning speed.

The tone of Sturges’ next film, The Palm Beach Story, would be far more even, although it’s arguably his most rambunctious and zany screwball comedy of all! Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert both play twins – only they don’t know the other one has a twin. A series of mix-ups and complications abound, with poor old Rudy Vallee at the center of all the confusion (perfectly parodying himself – at one point crooning “Goodnight Sweetheart” to Colbert as she and McCrea rediscover their love for one another – and proving himself to be an expert comic actor).

No discussion of Sturges would be complete without mention of those fabulous character actors he used so memorably in film after film. Too numerous to mention in detail here (his stock company merits an article of their own), the talented likes of Eric Blore, Charles Coburn, Robert Greig, William Demarest, Porter Hall, Jimmy Conlin, Franklin Pangborn, Al Bridge, and many, many others populate Sturges’ cinematic world and their contributions remain a key element of Sturges’ zany universe.

1944 would be a busy year for Sturges, with three films in the pipeline.

After The Great Moment, a biopic of Dr. W.T.G. Morton, the Boston dentist who claimed to have discovered anesthesia, Sturges made Miracle of Morgan’s Creek. Set in small-town America, Betty Hutton plays a girl who, after a going away party for the soldiers who are heading off to war, wakes up to find herself pregnant (but also married, thereby placating the Production Code Administration). Betty Hutton brought the requisite amount (and then some) of madcap energy to her role, with William Demarest as her disapproving father, and a breakout performance by Eddie Bracken as a small-town boy. The film received strong praise, finding one of its most unlikely fans in the great pioneering director D.W. Griffith.

Eddie Bracken returned in Sturges’ final film for Paramount, Hail the Conquering Hero, the story of a young, small-town guy who is mistaken for a war hero.

The film is rarely regarded as one of Sturges’ best works; in some ways it feels like a re-working of material left over from Miracle of Morgan’s Creel, and lacks the madcap energy and consistent brilliance of Sturges’ masterworks. Bracken, however, is good in the lead role, and would go on to have a long career in films, later appearing in supporting films for director John Hughes, including National Lampoon’s Vacation and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. The film itself would be remade in 1967, as The Reluctant Astronaut and starring Don Knotts.

Sturges would continue making films after departing from Paramount, but the body of work he produced in just the four year period between 1940 and 1944 holds up as one of the most remarkable achievements of any filmmaker, and cemented his place in the history of American screen comedy.