Preston Sturges
1944
It seems that no matter how hard I try I still have a difficult time appreciating Preston Sturges movies. Yeah "Sullivan's Travels" (1941) is great, and I know he's sort of considered one of early Hollywood's only true auteurs, but taking that into account maybe there's something to be said for studio oversight. It's not that his films are particularly bad, in fact the ones I've seen have all been passable or above average, but none so far have had that certain level of endlessly rewatchable brilliance. In other words, I'll take a "Bringing up Baby" (1938) over "The Lady Eve" (1941) any day, or any Marx Brothers movie over "Unfaithfully Yours" (1948). This one's got a pretty scandalous premise for post-code Hollywood as an overripe Betty Hutton wakes up after a night of entertaining departing servicemen to find out that she's been knocked up with no memory of who the father could be. Her pining admirer, the town weenie, takes up the mantle of baby-daddy to clear his love's name in the short term, and goes to ludicrous extremes in an attempt to permanently keep the scandal from seeing light. Hutton and her scheming Sis provide a fun anchor to the more clueless and blustery male characters, their father, town constable Kockenlocker (amazing screwball name) is a perfectly gruff shotgun-toting father and his back in forth with the grating and annoying Norval (Eddie Bracken) is the film at it's finest. Some of the slapstick sequences seem to drag on - particularly the ones involving Bracken. While the film's story is quite good, particularly the deus ex machina ending, it seems to suffer from poor casting (with the notable exception of Hutton and William Demearest), with supporting characters either over or underplaying their roles.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment