The Cinema of Preston Sturges

The Cinema of Preston Sturges

Author: Alessandro Pirolini

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2014-01-10

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 0786456140

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Most published works on writer-director Preston Sturges (1898-1959) have focused on the elements that made him a symbol of classic Hollywood comedy or his contributions to the genre via such 1940s classics as The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels and Miracle of Morgan's Creek. In contrast, this critical study asserts that there are enough unexplained incongruities, fragmentations and contradictions in Sturges' output to demand a re-evalution of his place in film history as a predecessor (and perhaps progenitor) of later postmodern filmmakers. Four appendices offer a generous selection of previously unavailable material, including an exclusive interview with the director's fourth wife Sandy Sturges.


Five Screenplays

Five Screenplays

Author: Preston Sturges

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 856

ISBN-13: 0520055640

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Five comic masterpieces by Preston Sturges, who has been called "Hollywood's greatest writer-director, with emphasis on the former." The scripts are drawn from the great period between 1939 and 1944, which Andrew Sarris called "one of the most brilliant and most bizarre bursts of creation in the history of cinema."


ReFocus: The Films of Preston Sturges

ReFocus: The Films of Preston Sturges

Author: Jeff Jaeckle

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2015-10-08

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1474406564

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This first collection of critical essays on Preston Sturges-director, screenwriter, comic genius of Hollywood-reawakens interest in the filmmaker's life and works and reminds readers why his movies continue to be culturally significant and immensely enjoyable.


Three More Screenplays by Preston Sturges

Three More Screenplays by Preston Sturges

Author: Preston Sturges

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1998-08-29

Total Pages: 508

ISBN-13: 9780520210042

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Preston Sturges (1898-1959) was a member of Hollywood's gifted royalty, producing a remarkable number of films. In this third volume of scripts by one of Hollywood's wisest and wittiest filmmakers, the focus is on screenplays written but not directed by Sturges. This volume will be the perfect accompaniment to the re-release of Sturges films on home video. 8 illustrations.


CinemaTexas Notes

CinemaTexas Notes

Author: Louis Black

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2018-02-26

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 1477315446

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Austin’s thriving film culture, renowned for international events such as SXSW and the Austin Film Festival, extends back to the early 1970s when students in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin ran a film programming unit that screened movies for students and the public. Dubbed CinemaTexas, the program offered viewers a wide variety of films—old and new, mainstream, classic, and cult—at a time when finding and watching films after their first run was very difficult and prohibitively expensive. For each film, RTF graduate students wrote program notes that included production details, a sampling of critical reactions, and an original essay that placed the film and its director within context and explained the movie’s historical significance. Over time, CinemaTexas Program Notes became more ambitious and were distributed around the world, including to luminaries such as film critic Pauline Kael. This anthology gathers a sampling of CinemaTexas Program Notes, organized into four sections: “USA Film History,” “Hollywood Auteurs,” “Cinema-Fist: Renegade Talents,” and “America’s Shadow Cinema.” Many of the note writers have become prominent film studies scholars, as well as leading figures in the film, TV, music, and video game industries. As a collection, CinemaTexas Notes strongly contradicts the notion of an effortlessly formed American film canon, showing instead how local film cultures—whether in Austin, New York, or Europe—have forwarded the development of film studies as a discipline.


Christmas in July

Christmas in July

Author: Diane Jacobs

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2023-11-10

Total Pages: 540

ISBN-13: 0520335414

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In this first critical biography of Preston Sturges, Diane Jacobs brings to life the great comic filmmaker whose career Andrew Sarris described as "one of the most brilliant and bizarre bursts of creation in the history of the American cinema." Jacobs uses letters and manuscripts never before revealed, as well as interviews with people who knew Sturges—including three of his wives—to portray this fascinating, contradictory man. In addition to discussing his major films, she also examines heretofore unknown work and shows that Sturges was highly creative even near the end of his life, a time when many believed he had lost his touch. Sturges secured his place in film history as the creator of such classic films as The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, and The Palm Beach Story. In 1939 he became the first screenwriter to win the right to direct his own script—the result was the Oscar-winning The Great McGinty. Creator of Unfaithfully Yours, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, and Hail the Conquering Hero, he was the third highest-paid man in the United States by the late 1940s. He owned a swank Hollywood restaurant and was known as an ebullient raconteur as well as a world-famous filmmaker. A little over a decade later, Sturges died in New York, impoverished and rejected by Hollywood. The euphoria of success, the fitfulness of luck, the promise and poignancy of the American Dream—the themes of Sturges's work also marked the man. Diane Jacobs achieves a singular success in illuminating his extraordinary life. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992.


Romantic Comedy in Hollywood

Romantic Comedy in Hollywood

Author: James Harvey

Publisher: Da Capo Press

Published: 1998-03-22

Total Pages: 738

ISBN-13: 9780306808326

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In 1934 four movies—It Happened One Night, Twentieth Century, The Thin Man, and The Gay Divorcee—ushered in the golden age of the Hollywood romantic ("screwball") comedy. Slangy, playful, and "powerfully, glamorously in love with love," the films that followed were unique in their combination of swank and slapstick. Here are the directors—Lubitsch (Trouble in Paradise), Capra (It Happened One Night), Hawks (Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday), McCarey (The Awful Truth), La Cava (My Man Godfrey, Stage Door), Sturges (The Lady Eve, The Palm Beach Story, The Miracle at Morgan's Creek)—and their stars—Carole Lombard, Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck, William Powell, Myrna Loy, among others—all described and analyzed in one comprehensive and delightful volume.


City of Nets

City of Nets

Author: Otto Friedrich

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1997-05-02

Total Pages: 518

ISBN-13: 9780520209497

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History of Hollywood in the 1940's