A wild and witty madcap comedy satirizing marriage
“The Palm Beach Story” is a hilariously joyous movie by Preston Sturges, the greatest cinematic satirist writer/director of the 1940's. Sturges was famous for his playfully clever dialogue, eccentric characters, wildly over-the-top plots, unpredictable twists and turns, and breakneck pace, and this fun-filled film has all of it. Smart, witty, and laugh-out-loud funny, it was named the 77th Funniest Movie of All-Time by the American Film Institute (AFI), and the 75th by the BBC. And it’s so rich with astute dialogue and laughs, it only gets better with each viewing. So fasten your seatbelts, for this week’s classic is one riotous joyride. They just don’t make movies like this anymore.
Set to the music of the "William Tell Overture", the opening credits play over a harebrained montage that includes a frightened maid, an impatient priest, a hurrying bride and groom, and a bound and gagged woman in a closet kicking down a door. By the end of the credits, the maid ends up unconscious, and the bride and groom are married in a church as the words "and they lived happily ever after" are superimposed over them, immediately followed by "or did they?".
We then jump ahead six years to 1942, where there's a duplex apartment for rent at 968 Park Avenue. An elderly couple is being shown the property by its manager, and the husband (who is hard of hearing and hilariously misinterprets just about everything that’s said) makes his way upstairs and meddles with things as he looks at rooms. Unbeknownst to him, he’s being spied on by a woman in a bathrobe, and after she sees him taste her toothpaste, she’s had enough of his snooping and finally confronts him, sarcastically asking “Is there anything else you’d like to try!”.
He quips, "I don't suppose you go with the flat? Naw, that's too much to hope for”, before guessing that she lives there, is broke, and the apartment is being rented out from under her – all of which she confirms. He turns out to be the “Wienie King” (inventor of the Texas hotdog) with gobs of money, and decides to give her a wad of cash with which to cover her rent, buy a new dress and hat, and tells her, "It's a privilege to do a favor for such a beautiful lady. It makes me feel young again”.
The beautiful lady is "Geraldine ‘Gerry' Jeffers”, who we soon see has a knack at inspiring men to willingly part with their cash. She’s married to “Tom”, an unsuccessful inventor, and the two have been broke and in debt for some time. His latest invention is a new type of airport that’s suspended in the air above a city’s center, for which he owns the patent and needs $99,000 to build.
With the cash from the “Wienie King”, “Gerry” pays the rent, the butcher, the grocer, and the drugstore, buys a dress, six pairs of stockings, some new shoes, gets her hair done, and still has $14 left to give to “Tom”, who is suspicious of exactly how she got the money from the old man. That sparks a civil yet heated discussion between the two, with “Gerry” insisting he gave it to her for “no reason”, and pointing out that “you have no idea what a long-legged gal can do without doing anything”.
Now that their debts are paid, looking forward, “Gerry” feels she’s weighing “Tom” down and tries to convince him (and herself) they’re no longer in love (though she still swoons every time he kisses her), and that she’d be more helpful to him as a sister than a wife. So she packs a bag and leaves for Palm Beach, Florida to get a divorce. Wanting her back, “Tom” follows her, and the two get mixed up with the eccentric millionaire “John D. Hackensack II”, who becomes smitten with “Gerry”, and his carefree sister "Maud" (also known as "The Princess Centimillia”), who fancies “Tom”.
Sound nutty? It is, but don’t worry. “The Palm Beach Story” is a film to surrender to, and because it’s so funny, you’ll have no choice but surrender. A plot description doesn’t even approach the lively experience of watching this farcical masterpiece. It’s a whirlwind of comedic misadventures, mistaken identities, and romantic entanglements, with profound witticisms and belly laughs about men, women, marriage, money, and happiness. It's one smart and satisfying romp.
Considered one of the last of cinema's best screwball comedies, "The Palm Beach Story” checks many of the boxes of that genre – action centering around the whims of a woman, an improbable plot, a rapid-fire pace, some slapstick humor, and that it's a romantic comedy at heart (you can learn more about screwball comedies in my posts on "Bringing Up Baby", "His Girl Friday", "What's Up Doc?", "Bombshell", and "My Man Godfrey”, just click on the film titles to open those posts). All this wild fun came from the mind of Sturges, who put his own personal stamp on it, making this comedy completely unique.
Unlike other female screwball comedy protagonists, "Gerry" is not screwy, she just makes screwy choices. And while a majority of screwball comedies portray the rich as bitchy or completely out of touch with reality (let us not forget, screwball comedies were born out of the Great Depression), there’s no judgement about the rich in “The Palm Beach Story”. Instead, they understand the world around them (the “Wienie King” was once poor and struggling) and cheerfully use their money to make themselves happy, even if it means giving it away to make someone else happy.
A genius at capturing humanity, Sturges uses his own distinct rhythm, brisk pace, sharp dialogue, and outrageous situations to make us laugh at the adversities of life. An example is when “Gerry” explains to “Tom” about getting the money from the “Wienie King”. In a fabulous play on the word “sex”, “Tom” asks, “Sex didn’t even enter into it?”, to which “Gerry” responds “Sex always has something to do with it, dear”, and proceeds to explain how women have to put up with constantly being ogled by men. What this playful scene reveals are the differences between men and women, the dynamics of relationships, and the deep bond between “Tom” and “Gerry”, so when she decides to leave him, it comes as an unexpected twist. As with the entire film, this scene is completely Sturges – funny, insightful, honest, surprising, original, and utterly entertaining.
One of Hollywood’s golden boys and kings of comedy, Sturges was Hollywood’s first successful writer/director. Without writing so much as a treatment or story, he would purportedly come up with an idea for a movie and then dictate a script to his secretary. “The Palm Beach Story” stemmed from Sturges’ belief that there were three types of aristocracies: the aristocracy someone is born into (such as kings or queens); the aristocracy of having considerable power or money; and the aristocracy of beauty. The film is about the latter, for as you’ll see, everyone helps "Gerry" simply because she's beautiful.
Sturges' original title was "Is Marriage Necessary and Is That Bad?", which was rejected by the Motion Picture Production Code (see my "Red Dust" post for more on the Code), as was the original script due to its trivial treatment of marriage and divorce, its racy dialogue, similarity between "John D. Hackensacker III" and real-life millionaire John D. Rockefeller, and “Maud's" eight divorces. Changes were made to tone things down ("Maud" is now divorced only three times with two annulments), and Sturges managed to get the film approved. He was one of the best at managing to slip things past censors in very clever ways. You’ll notice that sex is everywhere, yet nowhere to be seen.
Chicago-born Preston Sturges was raised by an adventurous, flamboyant, bohemian mother and a wealthy stepfather, and moved back and forth between America and Europe. His highly unconventional, colorful childhood included constant exposure to museums, art, and culture, as he, his mother, and her best friend (famed dancer Isadora Duncan) toured Europe. This shaped him and infused his films with a scrumptious mix of European sophistication (as in his discerning dialogue and sexual attitudes) and a down-home American sensibility (evident in his slapstick comedy and characters trying to succeed). “The Palm Beach Story” came during Sturges’ golden period of fame and talent, and arguably stands as his funniest film. It was the fifth of an astonishing seven brilliant, deeply human hit comedies he wrote and directed in a row, in just five years. You can read more about the life and career of the imitable Preston Sturges in my post on the fourth film in that string of masterpieces, "Sullivan's Travels". Be sure to check it out.
Sturges extracted great performances from his actors and that certainly includes Claudette Colbert who stars as “Geraldine ‘Gerry’ Jeffers”, and I can’t think of a more suited actress to play this role. Not only is she a vivacious beauty, but Colbert endows “Gerry” with her own warmth, personality, charm, and sense of humor, making it plausible that men want to shower her with money (as you'll clearly see in her scene opposite the “Wienie King”). She's irresistibly natural and funny, and intently watches and listens to her fellow actors, reacting with curiosity, annoyance, amusement, sincerity, delight, and everything in-between. Colbert doesn’t merely say her lines, but lives them with masterful comedic timing. Because it’s comedy and she makes it look effortless, it’s easy to take her talent for granted, but I can assure you (as an actor myself), acting doesn’t get better than this performance. Colbert was certainly one of cinema's greatest comediennes.
After steady Broadway work in the 1920s, Claudette Colbert was summoned West as Hollywood needed actors with voices with the arrival of sound. After a film debut in 1927's "For the Love of Mike" (her only silent film), she returned to movies in 1929, starring in her second film, “The Hole in the Wall”, and quickly became a star with such films as 1931's "The Smiling Lieutenant" and 1932's "The Sign of the Cross". After making nearly two dozen films came the year 1934 – when she starred in three Best Picture Oscar nominated films: “Cleopatra" (the highest grossing film that year in the US); the box office hit "Imitation of Life” (another classic); and “It Happened One Night”, (which took home the Best Picture Oscar, along with one for Colbert for Best Actress, and showed the world her gift for comedy).
Now the highest paid actress in Hollywood, and internationally famous, Colbert remained one of Hollywood’s top reigning movie queens through the 1940s, personifying a strong, resourceful, modern woman, and her performances remain modern. Though she starred in many different genres, Colbert became especially known for comedy and “The Palm Beach Story” is universally considered one of her best films. She married twice (including her first marriage to actor/director Norman Foster (who she never lived with), had reported affairs with women (including Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich), and spent the last twenty years of her life with Helen O’Hagan. Claudette Colbert died in 1996 at the age of 92. You can read more about the life and career of this superb actress in my post on “It Happened One Night”.
Also starring in “The Palm Beach Story” is Joel McCrea as “Tom Jeffers”, a failing yet hopeful inventor (as he tells “Gerry”, "Everybody's a flop until he's a success”). McCrea is marvelous in the part, skillfully using his inherent likability and even-tempered stoicism to craft a portrait of a man whose world is falling apart but hasn’t given up. We can feel embarrassment and sorrow in his delicately tender reaction as he replies "That's right. Rub it in" after “Gerry” tells him she can’t return the money because their creditors won’t give it back after waiting so long. He’s marvelously husbandly opposite Colbert, creating a spousal familiarity between them even when angry, jealous, or caring. And he has very funny lines which he delivers with deadpan hilarity. McCrea's role may be the least showy of the major characters, but his stolidity sits in divine contrast to the energetic zaniness all around him.
Joel McCrea had been a very popular leading man since 1930, mostly in melodramas and adventure films. Come 1941, he appeared in a bunch of hit romantic comedies starting with "Sullivan's Travels” (his first with Sturges), followed shortly after by "The Palm Beach Story". McCrea worked with many great directors in his ninety plus films, and loved working with Sturges (the two became friends), saying in an interview in the 1990 documentary "Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer”, "[Sturges] was a very good director to work with, which is not usual. Some of the better directors that we have are difficult, but he wasn’t.... I used to tell [Sturges] I'm not very good on long speeches, but with his, I would rattle them right off because they were so well written, so great, so what you would say”. McCrea worked with Sturges one more time in 1944's "The Great Moment” before dedicating the rest of his film career almost entirely to Westerns, the genre he felt most comfortable in. You can read more about the life and career of Joel McCrea in my post on “Sullivan’s Travels”.
Giving an enchantingly unhinged performance, Mary Astor plays “Maud”, millionaire sister to “John D. Hackensacker II”, who hysterically chooses men at whim (according to her brother "She'll go out with anything”), and shows up with her current fling, “Toto”, who speaks little English and who she describes as “a refugee from his creditors, I think”. She asks “Gerry”, "You're divorced of course?”, and when “Gerry” replies “No, no, not quite”, “Maud” zealously interjects "Oh that's marvelous! I don't think I'm quite through with the Prince yet either. We could look for new husbands together". Astor delivers all her dialogue a mile a minute and is quite hilarious, stealing nearly every scene in which she appears. In one scene she enters the room laughing, which is priceless. It’s a delectable performance, and if you know Astor from her famous dramatic roles, you are in for a delightful surprise. Funny enough, Astor reportedly disliked “Maud” and this movie. Many, including me, think it’s one of her best.
Mary Astor became a star in silent films and when sound came, resumed her star status in lead and major supporting roles during the 1930s. In 1936, in the midst of a messy public divorce, her diary entries about an extramarital affair were leaked to the press, causing a major scandal which ended up only increasing her popularity. The height of her fame came with her most memorable role in the 1941 classic film noir "The Maltese Falcon", and after playing mostly scheming women and liars, her role in "The Palm Beach Story" was a big lighthearted change of pace. Sadly, quickly after this film, Astor was regulated to playing mostly uninteresting mother roles, and after 1949, worked primarily on television. This is the fourth classic she appears in on this blog, and you can read more about the life and career of Mary Astor in my posts on "Meet Me in St. Louis", "Red Dust", and "The Maltese Falcon”.
Another standout performance is by Rudy Vallée who plays “John D. Hackensacker III”, one of the richest men in the world. Vallée’s dead-on comedic timing, sincerity, charm, and straight-faced line deliveries turn “Hackensacker” into a very human, awkwardly quirky, and riotously funny man. He makes simple lines like "You lost your clothes? Why, that's terrible” and "I'm not really the way you think I am, it's just my upbringing”, into risible declarations. And his snappy, good-natured rapport with “Gerry” while on his yacht talking about her husband is comedy gold. Vallée's sensational performance won him a National Board of Review Best Acting Award and led the way to more comedy roles. One of the most-popular American singers of the 1920s and 1930s and one of the first modern pop stars, Vallée even gets to sing a song in this film.
Vermont-born Rudy Vallée grew up in Maine with an early interest in music, played drums in his high school band, and the saxophone and clarinet in bands as a teenager. After graduating from Yale University (where he played lead saxophone in the Yale Collegians), he formed his own band, Rudy Vallée and the Connecticut Yankees, in which he played the saxophone and sang. By 1928, he was appearing on radio, and his soft, distinct, velvety voice made him one of music's first crooners (a singer with a smooth, intimate style). Because his voice was not loud, he sang through a megaphone, which became his trademark. Vallée’s good looks, smooth voice, and charismatic presence made him a humongous idol with thousands of women mobbing his shows and hungry to know everything about him. He recorded hundreds of songs in his career, and some of his hits include “Honey”, “The Stein Song”, “Brother Can You Spare A Dime”, “Vieni Vieni”, "I'm Just a Vagabond Lover", and “As Time Goes By”. In 1929, he hosted his own very popular radio show, "The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour", which made him a household name. He first brought his talents to the silver screen that same year, playing himself in the short film "Radio Rhythm” and starring in the musical feature "The Vagabond Lover”. He continued in movies, almost exclusively in musicals (playing himself or thinly veiled versions of himself), though his acting was mostly stiff.
Sturges reportedly cast Vallée in "The Palm Beach Story" after seeing one of his films in a theater and hearing people laugh when he said his lines. His deliciously comical performance in this film reinvented Vallée as a comedic actor. As his acting improved, his popularity as a singer diminished. He appeared in over forty films, including three more by Sturges ("The Sin of Harold Diddlebock", "Unfaithfully Yours", and "The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend"), as well as "I Remember Mama", "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer", "Gentlemen Marry Brunettes", and "Gold Diggers in Paris". He was in the original Broadway production of the musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", and reprised his role in the 1967 film version. Throughout his career, Vallée continued to perform on radio, stage, and in the 1950s, began working on television, including in a recurring role as the villain "Lord Marmaduke Ffogg" in the classic 1960’s TV show “Batman”. His final appearance was on a 1984 episode of "Santa Barbara”. He was married four times, including a marriage to actress Jane Greer. One of the early icons of American entertainment, Vallée made significant contributions to the music industry as a bandleader and recording artist, and led the way for future generations of pop and radio stars (such as Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Perry Como). Rudy Vallée died in 1986 at the age of 84.
Sturges cast many of the same actors again and again in his films, who became known as his unofficial stock company, and “The Palm Beach Story” is filled with them. I’ll just mention two, beginning with Robert Dudley, who is sidesplittingly funny as the “Wienie King”. His gruff, deadpan delivery and mix-up of words is among the funniest things in this movie, making his two scenes totally memorable.
Cincinnati-born Robert Dudley was a dentist before turning to acting. He began in silent films with 1917's "Seven Keys to Baldpate", and by 1921, was appearing in an average of three to five films a year. Dudley was one of those countless unsung actors who worked steadily in movies, never found fame, and often went unnoticed by audiences, but whose presence was vital in making movies seem real. As an example, let’s pretend two stars have a scene in a popular bar. To make the bar believable, they'd need actors to appear as bar patrons – some might have a line or two of dialogue, some might have only physical business (such as getting up from a table to walk past the camera), and others might be used in the background as what is known as “atmosphere” (sitting or standing, looking like they're drinking and talking). For the bulk of his career, Dudley played all of those things, with occasional showcased roles, most famously as the “Wienie King”. He also had notable roles in the silent films "The Night Flyer” and "The Fourteenth Man”, and Sturges' "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock" among others. He appeared in 130 films over the course of 34 years, including six written and directed by Sturges (the others being "The Lady Eve", "Sullivan's Travels", "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek", and "The Great Moment”). His other films include "Citizen Kane", "Three Wise Girls”, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, "A Stolen Life", "Mourning Becomes Electra", "Portrait of Jennie", and his final, 1951's "As Young as You Feel" (appearing as an old man on a park bench). He was married once. Robert Dudley died in 1955 at the age of 86.
Another glorious thing about Sturges was his ability to write dialogue in many different voices, and because of that, every single character in “The Palm Beach Story” (and there are loads) has their own distinct personality. That certainly includes William Demarest who plays the gruff “Ale and Quail Club” member who shoots blanks at crackers on the train. He's very funny when pointing his gun and saying "Bang bang!", and complaining that the gun club has turned into a glee club. Demarest became famous portraying this type of good-hearted curmudgeon and is undoubtedly a familiar face to classic movie and TV watchers.
Born in Minnesota but raised in New Jersey, William Demarest began in vaudeville with his two brothers. After serving in the Army during World War I, he made his Broadway debut in 1920's "Silks and Satins", and appeared in three more Broadway shows before 1932. His prolific screen career began in 1927 with "Finger Prints" and fifteen more films that year including the landmark "The Jazz Singer” (cinema's first feature-length movie with synchronized dialogue). By the 1930s, Demarest was a familiar character actor appearing in credited and uncredited roles of varying sizes. In 1940, he began working with Sturges in "The Great McGinty", and appeared in all ten Paramount films written and directed by Sturges. Demarest was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for 1945's "The Jolson Story", and other films from his approximately 140 include "The Great Ziegfeld", "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", "The Famers's Daughter", "Stage Door Canteen”, "Hands Across the Table”, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", "Viva Las Vegas", and his final, 1976's "Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood". In the late 1950s he took to television, on such shows as “Bonanza”, “The Twilight Zone”, and five episodes of "The Danny Thomas Show". Starting in 1965, he played "Uncle Charley O’Casey" for seven seasons on the hit TV series "My Three Sons", which made him a household name and earned him an Emmy Award nomination. He married twice. William Demarest died in 1983 at the age of 91.
Humorous, sophisticated, zany, spirited, playful, and completely entertaining, this week’s film is certain to bring laughter and joy. If you want fun, carefree comedy, you'll certainly find it here! Enjoy “The Palm Beach Story”!
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