The comedies of Preston Sturges, part 1: The Great McGinty to The Lady Eve

Preston Sturges in the early 1940s. Image source: Lady Eve's Reel Life

Over a period of four years between 1940 and 1944, seven comedy films written and directed by Preston Sturges were released by Paramount Studios. More remarkably, the first three of them—The Great McGinty, Christmas in July, and The Lady Eve—were released over just 6 months between August 1940 and February 1941. And even more remarkably, there's not a dud among the seven films, and some are among the best comedies ever produced by Hollywood.

This production schedule speaks to how smoothly functioning the Hollywood machine was at the height of the studio era, and also to Sturges' immense talent and drive. (At the same time that he was writing and directing these movies he was opening and running a now-legendary restaurant, The Players, where he could be found holding court almost every night.)

Sturges was in his mid-30s when he came to Hollywood in 1932 after writing a hit Broadway show, Strictly Dishonorable, which was turned into a successful (but now badly dated) movie. He went on to write several other scripts, including The Power and the Glory (1933), with Spencer Tracy, one of the models for Orson Welles' Citizen Kane; Easy Living (1937), a delightful screwball comedy with Jean Arthur and Edward Arnold; and Remember the Night (1940), featuring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in a wrenching Christmas noir four years before their memorable pairing in Double Indemnity. By the late 1930s he was one of the highest-paid writers in Hollywood, earning $2750 per week, about a hundred times the average wage in the U.S. at the time. [1]

But writing wasn't enough. Sturges also wanted to direct his own scripts, and when his Paramount contract expired in September 1939 he gave the studio an ultimatum. Paramount grudgingly agreed to let him direct one film if he would sell the script to the studio for $1 (later upped to $10) and accept a $400,000 shooting budget. For comparison's sake, the shooting budget for the average MGM film in 1939-40 was nearly twice that amount, and for an A-list film with major stars could be three to five times that amount. [2] 

The script Sturges chose was one he had written in 1933 with Spencer Tracy in mind for the lead. By 1939 Sturges and Tracy were working for different studios, and Sturges couldn't have afforded him anyway. So he went with a cast of unknowns and character actors, and in the process established a troupe he would draw on for all his later Paramount films.

The Great McGinty (filmed December 1939 - January 1940; released August 1940)

The Boss (Akim Tamiroff) and McGinty (Brian Donlevy) in The Great McGinty. Image source: DVD Talk

Originally entitled The Vagrant, the screenplay tells the story of a down-on-his-luck bruiser (Brian Donlevy) who impresses the boss of his city's political machine by voting for the machine's mayoral candidate 37 times (at $2 per vote). The Boss (Akim Tamiroff) hires the vagrant to be his muscle, and eventually to be his front as the "reform candidate" for mayor:

MCGINTY: What do you got to do with the reform party?
BOSS: I am the reform party. What do you think?
MCGINTY: Since when?
BOSS: Since always. In this town, I'm all parties. You think I'm going to starve every time they change administrations? [3]

André Bazin called Sturges the "anti-Capra." [4] This is unfair to Capra, who in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Meet John Doe (1941), It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and State of the Union (1948) also portrayed American politics and society as seamy and money-dominated. The difference between Sturges and Capra, though, is that in Sturges' films the decent individual does not always triumph over the corrupt system.

McGinty is ultimately elected governor of the state, but he makes the fatal error of trying to please his wife Catherine (Muriel Angelus) and actually institute reforms.

CATHERINE: I just mean that to have all the power and the opportunities you have to do things for people, and never to do anything except to shake them down a little, seems like a waste of something, doesn't balance. You understand?
MCGINTY: What are you trying to do, reform me?
CATHERINE: Oh, I was just being dull. I guess I went to one lunch too many this week. I heard so much about the sweat shops and child labor and fire traps the poor people live in. I. . .
MCGINTY: I couldn't do anything about those things if I wanted to, honey. . .They're the people who put me in. [5]

This is an astonishing stance for a post-Pre-Code Hollywood movie to take, but it resonated with audiences. That, and the sheer exuberance of the filmmaking: the rapid-fire dialogue, the fluid, continuous shots, and the scene where, on his first day as governor, McGinty strides into his office only to find the Boss sitting in his chair. As Diane Jacobs writes, "McGinty is about the American Dream constantly rebuked by American reality." [6]

McGinty was a commercial success and a critics' favorite. Sturges won the first Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, beating out Charles Bennett and Joan Harrison (Foreign Correspondent), Charlie Chaplin (The Great Dictator), Ben Hecht (Angels Over Broadway), and John Huston (Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet). It also won him the opportunity to write and direct more films. Sturges had long been planning for this chance, and had another script all ready to go.

Christmas in July (filmed June - July 1940; released November 1940)

Betty (Ellen Drew) and Jimmy (Dick Powell) in Christmas in July. Image source: Lake Front Row

Sturges based the script on his unproduced play from 1931, A Cup of Coffee. It takes place in the offices of "Maxford House Coffee" and its smaller rival Baxter's Blend. (Sturges' then-wife Eleanor Hutton was the daughter of Marjorie Merriweather Post, co-founder of General Foods, which owned Maxwell House.)

Jimmy MacDonald (Dick Powell), a lowly clerk at Baxter's, has entered the $25,000 Maxford House slogan contest. His entry: "If you can't sleep at night, it isn't the coffee, it's the bunk." (Not quite "Good to the last drop.") To the blank stares of everyone who hears his slogan Jimmy responds, "Get it?" No, they don't. [7]

He wants to win the contest so that he can care for his mother (Georgia Caine) and marry his loyal fiancée Betty (Ellen Drew). When Betty tells him that two can live as cheaply as one, he responds, "Who wants to live cheaply?. . .Everything that means happiness costs money." [8]

But the night of the big radio announcement of the winning slogan the prize jury is still deadlocked; one juror (William Demarest) is holding out. With the contest still undecided the next day, three of Jimmy's co-workers decide to play a cruel prank: they send him a fake telegram congratulating him for winning the prize. Jimmy is overjoyed, and the repercussions are immediate: Mr. Baxter (Ernest Truex), afraid of losing this slogan-writing genius to his rival, offers Jimmy a raise and his own office. Jimmy takes the rest of the day off and, with Betty, goes on a shopping spree at Schindel's department store, buying an engagement ring for her and presents for his entire neighborhood.

Meanwhile, Jimmy's co-workers confess to Baxter that the telegram was their doing, and soon Baxter and Schindel are racing to take everything back. Just when it seems Jimmy's fortunes can't sink any lower—he's been humiliated in front of his co-workers, friends, family and fiancée—the news comes that the prize jury has finally reached a decision. . .

Christmas in July portrays success and wealth in America as a matter of chance, rather than the deserved reward of virtue and hard work. A black cat appears in several scenes, and at one point Betty asks Baxter's janitor Sam (Fred Toones), "Is it good luck or bad when a black cat crosses your path?" He replies, "That all depends on what happens afterwards." Betty is right to be thinking about luck as the most likely way for the couple's fate to be transformed: in Sturges' films, those who do their jobs loyally and without complaint find themselves still in those jobs as the decades pass. [9]

Despite that message, or perhaps because of it, Christmas in July was another box-office success. The studio began to relax its tight grip on Sturges' budgets. For his next film, he'd have a longer shooting schedule (39 days—it actually took 41—versus 27 for Christmas) and be able to hire some marquee names.

The Lady Eve (filmed October - December 1940; released February 1941)

Eve (Barbara Stanwyck) tempts Charles (Henry Fonda) in The Lady Eve. Image source: Hollywood Soapbox

Basing his script on the story "Two Bad Hats" by Monckton Hoffe, Sturges transformed the characters, settings and situations to produce the quintessential Sturges comedy.

Charles Pike (Henry Fonda), heir to the "Pike's Pale Ale" fortune, is returning to New York from a snake-hunting expedition to the Amazon. On board the same ocean liner are Jean Harrington (Barbara Stanwyck) and "Colonel" Harry (Charles Coburn), a father-daughter team of card sharps planning to fleece him and the other rich passengers along the way. Charles, who has been in paradise and is bringing home a snake, is about to fall. Both metaphorically and literally: Jean trips him to provide an excuse to introduce herself, the first of many pratfalls Charles will take throughout the film.

Charles has been away from female company for a year, and a mere whiff of Jean's perfume is enough to make him dizzy. But, to her own surprise and her father's disgust, Jean finds herself genuinely falling in love with this naive, awkward, but tall, rich and handsome mark she calls "Hopsie."

JEAN: I'm going to be. . .exactly the way he thinks I am. The way he'd like me to be. . .You'll go straight too?
COL. HARRY: Straight to where?. . .The trouble with people who reform is they want to rain on everybody else's parade. [10]

That night the lovers, caught up in the romance of the warm breeze and moonlight on deck, confess their love to one another. But Charles' valet Muggsy (William Demarest) is suspicious, and learns that the purser has photographs of known professional card players, including Jean and the Colonel. Muggsy shows the photos to Charles, who is crushed by this unwelcome knowledge. The next morning Charles reveals what he knows to Jean. She tries to explain: "I was going to tell you when we got to New York. . .and, well, maybe I wanted you to love me a little more too." He doesn't believe her, though, and pretends that he knew all along: he was playing her for the sucker. [11]

Jean, a woman scorned, now decides to get her revenge. After they reach New York she has one of the Colonel's friends introduce her to the Pikes' Connecticut social set as his British niece, Lady Eve. Her accent doesn't fool Muggsy. "It's the same dame," he tells Charles, to no avail. On the rebound and thrown together with a woman who looks exactly like Jean (and even wears the same heady perfume), Charles is soon proposing marriage.

CHARLES: You see, Eve, you're so beautiful. You're so fine. You're so. . .I don't deserve you.
EVE: Oh, but you do, Charles. If anybody ever deserved me, you do. . .so richly.

And then her trap is sprung. As they are settling into the sleeper compartment on the train taking them on their honeymoon, Eve laughs and tells Charles that she's reminded of "that other time." When Charles presses her for details—what "other time"?—she confesses: that other night she spent on a train. When she eloped. At 16. With Angus, her family's stable boy:

EVE: It was nothing, darling. We ran away, but they caught us and brought us back. And that's all there was to it. That's all there was to it, except they discharged him.
CHARLES: Good. When they brought you back, it was before nightfall, I trust.
EVE: Oh, no.
CHARLES: You were out all night?
EVE: My dear, it took them weeks to find us.

Charles is crestfallen and jealous, but after a time and with great effort manages to summon his magnanimity.

CHARLES: Eve.
EVE: Yes, darling?
CHARLES: If there's one thing that distinguishes a man from a beast, it's the ability to understand, and understanding, forgive. Surely the qualities of mercy, understanding and sweet forgiveness—
EVE: Sweet what?
CHARLES: Sweet forgiveness!
EVE: Oh.
CHARLES: I won't conceal from you that I wish this hadn't happened. But it has, and so it has. . .The name of Angus will never cross my lips again, and I hope that you will do likewise. Now let us smile and be as we were.
EVE: I knew you'd be that way. . .I knew you'd be both husband and father to me. I knew I could trust and confide in you. I suppose that's why I fell in love with you.
CHARLES: Thank you.
EVE: I wonder if now would be the time to tell you about Herman. . .

Followed by Vernon, Hubert, Herbert, John. . .Hours later a stunned and reeling Charles stumbles off the train in the middle of nowhere.

Jean has had her revenge, but begins to wonder if she's taken things a little too far. On the ship she'd told him, "you don't know very much about girls, Hopsie. The best ones aren't as good as you probably think they are, and the bad ones aren't as bad. . .not nearly as bad." When she learns that Charles is heading back to South America on another snake expedition, the stage is set for one of the cleverest, funniest closing scenes in all American movie comedy. One of the films' final lines is "I don't want to know"—as Charles finally shows that he has chosen wisdom over knowledge. [12]

The Lady Eve is the best of Sturges' movies, which is saying a great deal. Both audiences and critics responded enthusiastically, but, oddly, at the 14th Academy Awards in 1942 Sturges was not nominated for best screenplay. It must be said that the competition that year was pretty stiff: other nominated screenplays included those for The Little Foxes and The Maltese Falcon. Ironically, the one nomination The Lady Eve received was for Best Original Story—Monckton Hoffe's "Two Bad Hats," of which only the conceit of a woman pretending to be lookalikes with different personalities remains in the final film. (It lost to Here Comes Mr. Jordan, based on the play Heaven Can Wait.)

After the success of his first three films, Sturges could seemingly do no wrong. As Jacobs writes, "If Preston's life were a Sturges comedy, here is where the story would end." [13] But much was about to change: a global war was looming, Sturges would increasingly come into conflict with the studio, and his private life was becoming ever more chaotic.

Next time: Sullivan's Travels and The Palm Beach Story

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1. Details about Sturges' life and work are taken from Diane Jacobs, Christmas in July: The Life and Art of Preston Sturges, University of California Press, 1992, p. 186. Wage information from Alice Olenin and Thomas F. Corcoran, Hours and Earnings in the United States, 1932-1940, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1942, p. 32.
   
2. To be precise, the average MGM shooting budget was $777,000. H. Mark Glancy, "MGM film grosses, 1924–1948: The Eddie Mannix Ledger," Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 12 No. 2, 1992, pp. 127-144. DOI: 10.1080/01439689200260081
3. Quoted in Jacobs, p. 203. 
4. Quoted in Jacobs, p. 184.
5. Quoted in Jacobs, p. 203. 
6. Jacobs, p. 212.
7. If you're having trouble getting it, "bunk" can mean either "bed" or "false information."
8. Quoted in Jacobs, p. 221. 
9. Quoted in Jacobs, p. 222.
10. All inset quotes from The Lady Eve screenplay are taken from "The Lady Eve Script - Dialogue Transcript," Drew's Script-O-Rama. http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/l/the-lady-eve-script-transcript.html
11. Quoted in Jacobs, p. 232.
12. Quoted in Jacobs, p. 239.
13. Jacobs, p. 240.