Crooked, but Never Common

In a burst of creativity unmatched in Hollywood history, Preston Sturges directed a string of all-time classic comedies from 1939 through 1948The Great McGinty, The Lady Eve, Sullivans Travels, The Palm Beach Story, and The Miracle of Morgans Creek among themall from screenplays he alone had written. Cynical and sophisticated, romantic and sexually frank, crazily breakneck and endlessly witty, his movies continue to influence filmmakers and remain popular to this day. Yet despite this acclaim, Sturgess achievements remain underappreciated: he is too often categorized as a dialogue writer and plot engineer more than a director, or belittled as an irresponsible spinner of laughs. In Crooked, but Never Common, Stuart Klawans combines a critics insight and a fans enthusiasm to offer deeper ways to think about and enjoy Sturgess work. He provides an in-depth appreciation of all ten of the writer-directors major movies, presenting Sturges as a filmmaker whose work balanced slapstick and social critique, American and European traditions, and cynicism and affection for his characters. Tugging at loose threadsdiscontinuities, puzzles, and allusions that have dangled in plain sightand putting the films into a broader cultural context, Klawans reveals structures, motives, and meanings underlying the uproarious pleasures of Sturgess movies. In this new light, Sturges emerges at last as one of the truly great filmmakersand funnier than ever.