Friday 4 January 2013

The Palm Beach Story (1942 Preston Sturges & scr)

Probably the best screwball comedy ever made and Sturges' best film (though frankly it's difficult to choose from any of his Golden era comedies 1941-44).

Joel McCrea, Claudette Colbert, Rudy Vallee, Mary Astor, Sig Arno, Robert Dudley (the Weinie king), Franklin Pangborn, William Demarest, Fred 'Snowflake' Toones (barman), Charles R. Moore ('the yachet').


Endlessly quotable dialogue. I love the speech Claudette gives about "the look".

Never noticed the detail of the shopkeeper nudging Claudette over a bracelet.

When she breaks Rudy's second pair of glasses by stepping on his face, he says "there". It's the way he says it.

Mary Astor - a torrent of words.

"It is a sad fact that the people most deserving of a beating are always enormous."

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