Focus Features

Preston Sturges among
his books

Another week, another romcom – or so it seems.

But when was the last one that was really any good? That reinvigorated a form that evolved under the guiding hand of Frank Capra in the 1930s? That took the hoary old clichés and made you feel that you were seeing them for the very first time?

If you need reminding of the glories to be found within this genre, just reach for a box set of the films of Preston Sturges. Elegant, witty and inventive, his films are a delight – and the Coen brothers are very much his heirs.

Here's the man himself, talking about his life – and films. He begins with his inventing kiss-proof lipstick:

"I perfected a lip rouge that would stay on all day and all night and called it, after the red, red rose, Red Red Rouge. I designed a pretty box for it and some advertising displays for drugstores, and it began to sell fairly well. I visited all the buyers of the great New York department stores, who were very kind to me and gave me orders. I remember one day talking to the buyer at B. Altman's about the selling price, telling him that if he just added 50% to the purchase price, it would give him a 33% profit on the sale. He said, "Sonny, they never built this building on 33%!" 

I also visited all the drugstores, the hairdressers, and the beauty parlors I could find in New York and made selling tours out to Long Island. Again, everybody was very nice to me, and I was so innocent of any selling technique whatsoever that the buyers used to help me. "You shouldn't put it that way, Preston; you should say something like this..." After which they sold themselves a bill of goods. Commercial callowness soon became my technique.

In most biographies I have read, practically everything the protagonists did, even in their extreme youth, had some bearing on their later pursuits and could be cleverly woven in as a sort of object lesson. But if there is any connection between trying to sell Red Red Rouge and my eventual work in the theatre and the movies, the thread escapes me."

Sturges on the set of The
Palm Beach Story

Sturges began as a writer, but then became one of the first writer-directors. The first film he directed was The Great McGinty, for which he won the Screenwriting Oscar:

"For The Great McGinty, I received a statuette of a nude gentleman with a very long sword, known as Oscar, and I am looking at it with considerable satisfaction right this minute.

I reveled in directing.

I thought it would be a good idea to establish myself as a commercial director – that is, a director who makes money for his company – as soon as possible. I knew that if I earned enough money for my company, I would be permitted to do anything I wanted. I rapid succession, I wrote and directed Christmas in July (from my play Cup of Coffee), The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, The Palm Beach Story, The Great Moment, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, and Hail the Conquering Hero.

I was scared to death about The Lady Eve. I happen to love pratfalls, but as almost everything I like, other people dislike, and vice versa, my dearest friends and severest critics constantly urged me to cut the pratfalls down from five to three. But it was actually the enormous risks I took with my pictures, skating right up to the edge of nonacceptance, that paid off so handsomely. 

There are certain things that will convulse an audience, when it has been softened up by what has occurred previously, that seem very unfunny in cold print. Directing and acting have a lot to do with it, too. I had my fingers crossed when Henry Fonda went over the sofa. I held my left ear when he tore down the curtains and I held everything when the roast beef hit him. But it paid off. Audiences, including the critics, surrendered to the fun, and the picture made a lot of money for the studio."

Extract from Preston Sturges On Preston Sturges, adapted and edited by Sandy Sturges (Faber & Faber, 1990)

Essential Viewing: The Great McGinty [Buy], The Lady Eve [Buy], Sullivan's Travels [Buy], The Palm Beach Story [Buy], The Miracle of Morgan's Creek [Buy]

Preston Sturges among
his books

Another week, another romcom – or so it seems.

But when was the last one that was really any good? That reinvigorated a form that evolved under the guiding hand of Frank Capra in the 1930s? That took the hoary old clichés and made you feel that you were seeing them for the very first time?

If you need reminding of the glories to be found within this genre, just reach for a box set of the films of Preston Sturges. Elegant, witty and inventive, his films are a delight – and the Coen brothers are very much his heirs.

Here's the man himself, talking about his life – and films. He begins with his inventing kiss-proof lipstick:

"I perfected a lip rouge that would stay on all day and all night and called it, after the red, red rose, Red Red Rouge. I designed a pretty box for it and some advertising displays for drugstores, and it began to sell fairly well. I visited all the buyers of the great New York department stores, who were very kind to me and gave me orders. I remember one day talking to the buyer at B. Altman's about the selling price, telling him that if he just added 50% to the purchase price, it would give him a 33% profit on the sale. He said, "Sonny, they never built this building on 33%!" 

I also visited all the drugstores, the hairdressers, and the beauty parlors I could find in New York and made selling tours out to Long Island. Again, everybody was very nice to me, and I was so innocent of any selling technique whatsoever that the buyers used to help me. "You shouldn't put it that way, Preston; you should say something like this..." After which they sold themselves a bill of goods. Commercial callowness soon became my technique.

In most biographies I have read, practically everything the protagonists did, even in their extreme youth, had some bearing on their later pursuits and could be cleverly woven in as a sort of object lesson. But if there is any connection between trying to sell Red Red Rouge and my eventual work in the theatre and the movies, the thread escapes me."

Sturges on the set of The
Palm Beach Story

Sturges began as a writer, but then became one of the first writer-directors. The first film he directed was The Great McGinty, for which he won the Screenwriting Oscar:

"For The Great McGinty, I received a statuette of a nude gentleman with a very long sword, known as Oscar, and I am looking at it with considerable satisfaction right this minute.

I reveled in directing.

I thought it would be a good idea to establish myself as a commercial director – that is, a director who makes money for his company – as soon as possible. I knew that if I earned enough money for my company, I would be permitted to do anything I wanted. I rapid succession, I wrote and directed Christmas in July (from my play Cup of Coffee), The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, The Palm Beach Story, The Great Moment, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, and Hail the Conquering Hero.

I was scared to death about The Lady Eve. I happen to love pratfalls, but as almost everything I like, other people dislike, and vice versa, my dearest friends and severest critics constantly urged me to cut the pratfalls down from five to three. But it was actually the enormous risks I took with my pictures, skating right up to the edge of nonacceptance, that paid off so handsomely. 

There are certain things that will convulse an audience, when it has been softened up by what has occurred previously, that seem very unfunny in cold print. Directing and acting have a lot to do with it, too. I had my fingers crossed when Henry Fonda went over the sofa. I held my left ear when he tore down the curtains and I held everything when the roast beef hit him. But it paid off. Audiences, including the critics, surrendered to the fun, and the picture made a lot of money for the studio."

Extract from Preston Sturges On Preston Sturges, adapted and edited by Sandy Sturges (Faber & Faber, 1990)

Essential Viewing: The Great McGinty [Buy], The Lady Eve [Buy], Sullivan's Travels [Buy], The Palm Beach Story [Buy], The Miracle of Morgan's Creek [Buy]