Movie Reviews for The Palm Beach Story

The Palm Beach Story

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Movie Reviews of The Palm Beach Story

Movie Review: For Lovers of Screwball Comedy
Summary: 4 Stars

Claudette Colbert is brilliant in this fine example of Preston Sturges' work. Vaguely reminiscent of "It Happened One Night," this film features a notable performance by Rudee Vallee.

Movie Review: Uneven, but some hilarious moments
Summary: 3 Stars

The innocuous title of "The Palm Beach Story" is a deliberate followup to the hugely successful and popular "The Philadelphia Story." Both deal with divorce and remarriage, both have some outrageously funny and unforgettable moments. The primary difference is that the story of "The Philadelphia Story" is as smooth and well paced as any film. The Palm Beach version, on the other hand, moves in fits and starts like a classic car in bad need of a valve job.

Writer/director Preston Sturges's work has somehow faded over the years in general, and that's a crying shame. His best work, like "The Lady Eve" and "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek," deserves a more well-remembered place in history; although he does still have his core of fans, he takes a back seat to such as John Ford, John Wayne, Frank Capra, Humphrey Bogart, etc., in terms of fame. Sturges really deserves to be mentioned in the same breath, but even those more famous names had mediocre outings. This is one of Sturges's so-so films, ultimately not as memorable as some others. There's an outrageous sequence where a bunch of drunks shoot up a train, which finally brings the film alive when it's about 45 minutes old, and there's an apparently European gentleman who provides great comedy relief for the final half-hour.

Other than these welcome bright spots, it's a screwball comedy without many laughs, just odd situations. It's a case where the always fun Claudette Colbert is better than her material, as are Rudy Vallee and several of the bit players, while Joel McCrea is practically faceless and undistinguished.

Worth watching once, but I won't be taking up shelf space in my home with a copy of "The Palm Beach Story." The sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

Movie Review: A Romantic Farce
Summary: 3 Stars

Claudette Colbert plays a woman married to a struggling architect played by Joel McCrea. She loves him but not the lifestyle. She also thinks that he can do better without her so she takes it into her head to run away to Palm Beach to get a quickie divorce. He, on the other hand, is not so fickle. He loves her and does not want to lose her. He takes off chasing after her to stop the divorce. While en route, she is aided by a gentleman who not only turns out to be one of the richest men in the world, he also falls for her. Mr. Rich Guy has a socialite sister who happens to fall for the jilted husband as he tries to woo back his wife. The issue is complicated because the runaway bride lies and says that her husband is in fact her brother. It's a story of guys chasing gals and vice versa with nothing sacred or too serious.

This film has some light moments and is evocative of a long past style. It brought back memories even though I was not even born in the era it portrayed. There is nothing overly memorable about the film but it was an enjoyable experience. If you like old movies, especially romantic comedies, this is a good bet.

Movie Review: It's a trip (but I wouldn't want to live there)
Summary: 2 Stars

I love old movies. They're like time machines. Glimpses into the past; into the world that my parents inhabited.

But in this case it is a fantasy world. In l942, the country, having endured over a decade of economic depression, had just stepped across the threshold into the uncertain and wrenching horror of World War II. An easy sell in those hard times was a variation on the old Cinderella/Prince Charming story. So ignoring the current political realities and exploiting the great disparities of his day, Mr. Sturges created a fluffy hour and a half diversion based on the premise that some men, as he spares no cliché to point out, are born more equal than others.

The story line, unstructured and at times befuddling, is a typical Hollywood hash job. Having been monetarily blessed by her fairy godfather (Robert Dudley as the Weenie King) Mrs. Gerry Jeffers (Claudette Colbert) leaves New York, her hapless husband Tom (Joel McCrea), and all her troubles behind. Aboard a train, (the pumpkin), bound for the fantasyland of Palm Beach where the stinking rich live the high life (then as now) in a bubble completely divorced from the grueling exigencies of the average Joe's day to day life, she meets her Really Rich Guy, John D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee), who buys her everything. Will her looser husband who really loves her win her back? Or will the licentious Princess Centimillia (Mary Astor) get her hooks into him first?

The transcendent scene for me was when Rudy Vallee sings "Goodnight Sweetheart" while Colbert struggles with the zipper on an evening dress that Madonna would die for.

Sexual innuendo aside, I found this movie to be neither humorous nor entertaining. Rather it was boorish, predictable, and contrived. The most egregious injury was to those people represented by characters such as Fred Toones, the Club Car bartender, portrayed stereotypically, so as to reinforce and perpetuate the Jim Crow racism of the day. An insult then, an embarrassment now.

In fact the whole movie is a celebration of a system of exploitation. The Robber Baron descendent Hackensacker is unbothered by the source of his plentitude. It just is. Sturges, who knew only too well where the bodies were buried in Palm Beach, didn't want to spoil the fun by showing us how such wealth is made and supported. This is after all a fairy tale. A whitewash.

Call me a wet blanket but it just amazes me that this kind of tripe could be made during a time of world upheaval, suffering and sacrifice. I think it says something very unflattering about 1942 Hollywood in general, Sturges in particular, and the audiences who bought into this load.

A good movie should not only be literate and technically competent, but compelling and inspiring. Or at least funny. Measures to which this old flick hardly attains. I think I'm being generous in giving it two stars. Nevertheless, its redemption, as with many old things, has come with the years, and its value now lies in the perspective on contemporary life that a viewer can distill from its representations of that 1942 zeitgeist.

And for the hopelessly nostalgic like myself, a trip back to a time past.