Preston Sturges on The Criterion Channel
Salutations,
Beginning today (for a limited time), The Criterion Channel is featuring a curated collection of the eight greatest films produced by my favorite filmmaker, Preston Sturges. If you are unfamiliar with Sturges and the hilarious, subversive films that Criterion is featuring — The Great McGinty (1940), Christmas in July (1940), The Lady Eve (1941), Sullivan’s Travels (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1942), The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944), Hail the Conquering Hero (1944), and Unfaithfully Yours (1948) — you have your mission for the weekend. Trust me. You won’t be sorry. Preston Sturges just makes life better.
If you’re looking for a good place to start, I suggest a double feature of Sturges’ directorial debut, The Great McGinty, followed by his biggest hit, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek. They work beautifully as a pair. You’ll see why, if you watch them back-to-back.
For those of you discovering these films for the first time, I envy you. You’re going to have a ball.
Here’s the description of the curated collection from The Criterion Channel:
Directed by Preston Sturges
From capitalism to patriotism to politics to marriage, there was virtually no pillar of American life that escaped unscathed during screwball auteur Preston Sturges’s whirlwind heyday in the 1940s. One of the first Hollywood filmmakers to write and direct his own scripts (a deal he negotiated by selling his Oscar-winning screenplay for The Great McGinty to Paramount for just $10), Sturges took screwball comedy to new heights of sublime absurdity with his elegantly cockeyed dialogue, free-form approach to narrative, and subversive skewering of conventional morality. These immortal comedy classics—including the Barbara Stanwyck sizzler The Lady Eve, the everyman ode Sullivan’s Travels, and the Production Code–defying jaw-dropper The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek—were the result of a brief but dazzling run of creativity that remains virtually unmatched in Hollywood history.
Featuring: The Great McGinty (1940), Christmas in July (1940), The Lady Eve (1941), Sullivan’s Travels (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1942), The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944), Hail the Conquering Hero (1944), Unfaithfully Yours (1948)
