The Palm Beach Story is a 1942 romantic screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, and starring Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor and Rudy Vallée. Victor Young contributed the lively musical score, including a fast-paced variation of William Tell Overture for the opening scenes. Typical for a Sturges movie, the pacing and dialogue of The Palm Beach Story are very fast.
Plot
Thomas and Geraldine Jeffers (Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert) are a married couple in New York City who are down on their luck financially, which is pushing the marriage to an end. But, there is another deeper issue with their relationship. One that is brought up in the first sequence of the movie as the opening credits roll, but many people miss.
In the opening sequence we see Claudette Colbert bound and gagged in a closet, but then we see her a second later in a wedding dress, caught by the maid with a penchant for fainting at every emotional conflict. Colbert is playing twins, both of whom are in love with the intended groom played by Joel McCrea. The sister of the bride has just tied up her sibling in an attempt to steal the wedding for herself. But as the pantomime is cross-cut with action showing McCrea rushing to the alter it becomes apparent something is wrong here too as McCrea hurriedly changes from one formal suit to another in the car. It turns out McCrea's character is also twins and the sibling is likewise in love with the tied up Colbert sister. Ironically, he too is trying to steal the wedding. The end result is it's the two siblings, not the original bride or groom, who are married.
The two remain married from 1937 until 1942 where the film continues from. Gerry decides that Tom would be better off if they split up. So she packs her bags, borrows some money from The Wienie King (Robert Dudley), a strange but rich little man who's stopped by because he's thinking of renting the Jeffers' apartment, and boards a train for Palm Beach, Florida, to establish residency in anticipation of a divorce, and in the hope of meeting a wealthy second husband who can help Tom. On the train, she meets the eccentric John D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee), one of the richest men in the world (whose name is reminiscent of John D. Rockefeller's).
Because of an encounter with the wild and drunken millionaire members of the "Ale and Quail" hunting club, Gerry loses all her luggage and, after making do with clothing scrounged from other passengers, is forced to accept Hackensacker's charity, which turns out to be extravagant. They leave the train and go on a massive shopping spree for everything from lingere to jewelry – Hackensacker minutely noting the cost of everything in a little notebook, which he never bothers to add up – and make the remainder of the trip to Palm Beach on Hackensacker's yacht.
In the antic manner of their namesakes Tom and Jerry, Tom follows Gerry to Palm Beach by air, also with the impromptu financial assistance of The Wienie King. When Tom meets Hackensacker, Gerry introduces him as her brother, giving him the improbable name "Captain McGlue". Soon, Hackensacker falls for Gerry, while his often-married, man-hungry sister, Princess Centimillia (Mary Astor), chases Tom, much to the distress of her last lover, Toto (Sig Arno), who's still following her around. To help further his suit with Gerry, Hackensacker agrees to invest in Tom's grand masterpiece, a scheme to build an airport suspended over a city by wires.
Tom finally persuades Gerry to give their marriage another chance, and they confess their masquerade to their disappointed suitors. Even though he's disappointed, Hackensacker intends to go through with his investment in the suspended airport, since he thinks it's a good business deal, and he never lets anything get in the way of business. Then, when Tom and Gerry let slip that they met because they are both identical twins – a fact which somewhat explains the opening sequence of the film, which until now has not been referred to[1] – Hackensacker and his sister are elated. The final scene shows Hackensacker and Gerry's sister, and the Princess and Tom's brother, getting married.
The film ends with the words: "And they lived happily ever after...or did they?"
Cast
Cast notes
- This was Sturges' second collaboration with Joel McCrea, following Sullivan's Travels from the previous year and they would work together again on The Great Moment, which was filmed in 1942 (but released in 1944). Although Claudette Colbert and Sturges had both worked on The Big Pond (1930) and the 1934 version of Imitation of Life, The Palm Beach Story was the only time they worked together on a movie Sturges wrote and directed.
- The Palm Beach Story was Rudy Vallee's first comedic role, and it garnered him a contract from Paramount,[2] as well as an award for Best Actor of 1942 from the National Board of Review.[3] He would go on to appear in Sturges' The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, Unfaithfully Yours and The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend.
- Many members of Sturges' unofficial "stock company" of character actors appear in The Palm Beach Story, among them Al Bridge, Chester Conklin, Jimmy Conlin, William Demarest, Robert Dudley, Byron Foulger, Robert Greig, Harry Hayden, Arthur Hoyt, Torben Meyer, Frank Moran, Charles R. Moore, Jack Norton, Franklin Pangborn, Victor Potel, Dewey Robinson, Harry Rosenthal, Julius Tannen and Robert Warwick.
- This was the seventh of ten films written by Preston Sturges in which William Demarest appeared.[4]
Production
At least part of the initial inspiration for The Palm Beach Story may have come to Preston Sturges from close to home, since his ex-wife, Eleanor Hutton, was an heiress who moved among the European aristocracy, and was once wooed by Prince Jerome Rospigliosi-Gioeni, among others, and Sturges himself had shuttled back and forth between Europe and America as a young man. Indeed one incident in the film is based on something which happened to Sturges and his mother while traveling by train to Paris, when the car with their compartment was unhitched while they were eating dinner two cars away.[5]
The story Sturges came up with had the title "Is Marriage Necessary", and this, along with an alternative, "Is That Bad?", became a working title for the film. Unfortunately, "Is Marriage Necessary?" was rejected by the censors of the Hays Office, who also rejected the script that Paramount submitted to them because of its "sex suggestive situations...and dialogue." Changes were made, but the Hays Office continued to reject the script because of its "light treatment of marriage and divorce" and because of similarities between the "John D. Hackensacker III" character and John D. Rockefeller. More changes were made, including reducing the number of Princess Centimillia's previous marriages from eight to three (plus two annulments), before the script finally was approved.[2]
The cast Sturges assembled for the film was not cheap: Claudette Colbert received $150,000, and Joel McCrea was paid $60,000, while Mary Astor and Rudy Vallee also received hefty sums.[5]
The film went into production on November 24, 1941 and wrapped on January 13, 1942.[6] The second unit did background shooting at Penn Station in Manhattan.[7] The film premiered in New York City on 2 November 1942 and went in to general release on 7 November.[8] The film was released on video in the U.S. on 12 July 1990 and re-released on 30 June 1993.[9]
Awards and honors
American Film Institute recognition
See also
References
External links
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Preston Sturges |
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Broadway
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| 1930s |
The Big Pond (dialogue,1930) · La grande mare (dialogue,1930) · Fast and Loose (add'l dialogue,1930) · Strictly Dishonorable (prev. play,1931) · They Just Had to Get Married (uncredited,1932) · Child of Manhattan (prev. play,1933) · The Power and the Glory (writer & dialogue dir,1933) · The Invisible Man (unc contract writer,1933) · Twentieth Century (uncredited,1934) · Thirty-Day Princess (writer,1934) · We Live Again (adapter,1934) · Imitation of Life (unc. contract writer,1934) · The Good Fairy (writer,1935) · Diamond Jim (writer,1935) · Next Time We Love (uncredited,1936) · Love Before Breakfast (uncredited,1936) · One Rainy Afternoon (lyrics,1936) · Hotel Haywire (writer,1937) · Easy Living (writer,1937) · College Swing (unc. contract writer,1938) · Port of Seven Seas (writer,1938) · If I Were King (writer,1938) · Never Say Die (writer,1939)
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| 1940s |
Remember the Night (writer,1940) · Broadway Melody of 1940 (uncredited,1940) · The Great McGinty (writer & dir,1940) · Christmas in July (writer & dir,1940) · The Lady Eve (writer & dir,1941) · New York Town (uncredited,1941) · Sullivan's Travels (writer, dir & prod,1941) · Safeguarding Military Information (writer,1942) · I Married a Witch (unc. prod,1942) · The Palm Beach Story (writer & dir,1942) · Star Spangled Rhythm (actor,1942) · The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (writer, dir, prod, lyrics,1944) · Hail the Conquering Hero (writer, dir, prod, music, lyrics,1944) · The Great Moment (writer, dir & unc. prod,1944) · I'll Be Yours (writer,1947) · The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (writer, dir & unc. prod,1947) · Unfaithfully Yours (writer, dir & prod,1948) · The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend (writer, dir & prod,1949)
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| 1950s |
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Broadway
& posthumous |
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