The Fedora Chronicles - The Golden Age of Hollywood: Preston Sturges

Preston Sturges (1898 - 1959)

Perhaps more than any other director Preston Sturges injected a crazy style which helped people forget a world war. His films were very sharply satirical and often quite daring for their time. Starting as a writer in the Thirties on films like The Power and the Glory (1933) and Easy Living (1937) he became the epitome of the writer-director auteur, his films crackle with wisecracks and swift, rippling dialogue.

Sturges directed a series of excellent films at Paramount in the early Forties beginning with The Great McGinty (1940) which were very successful. The arrival of sound and the growth of the studio system resulted in the producers dominating the industry. Directors wanting to make films their own way unless they were a select band usually had a battle on thier hands. Sturges parodied this in Sullivan's Travels (1941) in which Joel McCrea argues with the producers about whether to make a slapstick comedy or his preferred option a highbrow drama. Eventually after experiencing life in a chain gang McCrea decides on the comedy : " There's a lot to be said for making people laugh. You know that's all some people have. It isn't much but it is better than nothing."

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1943) satirised the perennial nightmare of the soldier, sailor or airman that his wife or girlfriend will be sleeping around and getting pregnant in his absense. Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) put excitement about bravery under the spotlight by telling the story of a young man played by Eddie Bracken who has been invalidated out of the army without fighting. He returns to his home to a hero's welcome and seems unable to tell the truth. The fuss is climaxed by a campaign to elect him mayor, the truth is revealed but the innate goodness of Bracken means the people still want him.

After the war Sturges style of comedy seemed to go out of style. He left Paramount and worked for a time with Howard Hughes, a combination that resulted in a lacklustre comeback for Harold Lloyd in The Sin of Harold Dibblebock (1946). He made a couple of films at 20th Century Fox in the late 40s but they weren't successful and that was really the end of his Hollywood career.