Madame et ses flirts

The Palm Beach Story is one of the best examples of the wonderful nonsense that Hollywood used to turn out in its best comedies. It's only in the movies that circumstances like these happen and it's quite beyond my powers to describe them.

Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert come to a dry patch in their marriage and decide to split. Colbert takes a train to Palm Springs and McCrea pursues her by plane. And they both wind up with a brother and sister pair of gazillionaires in the persons of Rudy Vallee and Mary Astor.

I will say that Preston Sturges did kind of reach into left field for his romantic ending, but that's half the fun of The Palm Beach Story.

Only half because the other half is the fun of the journey. Not much happens to Joel, but Claudette is on one wild ride when she's adopted by a gang of drunken millionaire sportsmen known as the Ale and Quail Club.

The proponents of gun control should get the right to The Palm Beach Story and run it at all opportunities. Seeing these louts, plastered out of their minds and shooting off their weapons is pretty funny and the best argument I know for gun control. Preston Sturges used some of his favorite players from his usual stock company for members of Ale and Quail.

Also look for a very funny performance by Robert Dudley as the 'wienie king' whose encounter with Colbert sets everything in motion.

Rudy Vallee gets to sing in this which is also nice. He sings a chorus of Isn't It Romantic and then sings his own hit, Goodnight Sweetheart which has the opposite effect from what he intended.

The Palm Beach Story is the object lesson in how to make screen comedy and make it to last.

A real hoot from Preston Sturges, a rollicking watch which is over all too soon. From the brilliant stop-start sequence over the titles, confusing right until the last frame which at last makes crazy sense (I'm sure Preston would forgive the oxymoron!) of it all, taking in a madcap menagerie of characters, every bit as eccentric as their names or nicknames indicate, for example get these; the Wiener King, the Ale and Quail Club, Princess Centimillia not to mention John D Hackensacker the Third. The set-piece comedic set-ups at the couple's flat, train station, on-board the train and on Hackensacker's yacht are played to the hilt with lightning fast delivery of dialogue so good you take for granted the comic timing so effortlessly achieved. Star of the show is the lovely effervescent Claudette Colbert, almost 40 at the time of making this movie but looking years younger in a variety of differing costumes, taking in over-sized men's pyjamas to the very best costumes that Hackensacker can buy.She's an audio-visual treat, putting into effect her madcap idea for the betterment of her unlucky, under-achieving, unrecognised husband, played with straight-laced, straight-faced aplomb by previous Sturges alumni, Joel McCrea. There are far too many other minor highlights amongst the supporting cast along the way to mention, with almost everyone in the cast getting to make some kind of wisecrack and the whole is served up as a riotous upper-class Marx Brothers-type confection for the 40's replete with a sub-Harpo stooge as Princess Centimillia's adoring numb-skull suitor. There are so many scenes which just fizz and crackle with wit and occasionally bawdy humour, as Sturges takes pot-shots at sexual mores and the idle rich. Rudy Vallee is great in his role as the hopelessly smitten, hapless multi-millionaire and Mary Astor equally winning as his caustic, man-mad sister. To summarise, 90 minutes of sheer Hollywood bliss topped off with that magic Sturges touch.

THE PALM BEACH STORY is not to be confused with reality. It's a zany romantic comedy given full speed treatment by director Preston Sturges who brought screwball comedy to an art form.

His script, full of hilarious one-liners that fly by almost too fast to catch, is acted to perfection by CLAUDETTE COLBERT, RUDY VALLEE and MARY ASTOR--with a less enthusiastic turn by JOEL McCREA who gives the only so-so performance, perhaps because none of the wittiest lines come his way. I've always liked this actor but here is performance is almost muted and strangely remote.

Nevertheless, if screwball comedy is your dish, this is one you can relish. From the moment Colbert gets aboard a train carrying her to Palm Beach, the fun starts and gets into high gear, racing toward a conclusion that is not altogether satisfying nor even remotely hinted at until the final few minutes of film. It's a twist that somehow doesn't ring true--the only really false note in an otherwise perfect screwball comedy.

Rudy Vallee is outstanding as a nutty millionaire, a role written expressly for him (and he even gets to sing a little)--and Mary Astor, as his husband hunting sister, is hilariously over the top as a woman who can't stop talking while pursuing her man.

A good way to spend a pleasant 90 minutes.

Even more dementedly frantic than The Lady Eve, this film is Preston Sturges's most delirious screwball/slapstick romance, with one of the most amazing bits of comic combustion in the Ale and Quail Club train sequence. It's not as neatly structured as The Lady Eve, but it's filled with hilarious gags, lines, and performances. Claudette Colbert and Joel McCrea are remarkably composed and relaxed, but Rudy Vallee, Mary Astor, and all the other performers outdo themselves in energetic tomfoolery. When Vallee complains, plaintively, that the problem with the world is that the men most in need of a beating are usually enormous, or when Astor slyly suggests that she grows on people, like moss, you know you're hearing Preston Sturges's wit at its peak.

Fun fun!! the versatile Claudette Colbert is Gerry, married to an architect Tom (Joel Mcrea), who can't get his designs across. so... Gerry hatches a ridiculous plot to leave him, and get hitched to someone who CAN help him. right from the start, we know its going to be silly and fun, with the william tell overture. Supporting cast is filled with incredible hollywood names (how did they ever get all of them together?) Mary Astor, Rudy Vallee, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn. and some funny scenes, like the old,deaf guy that wants to rent Gerry's apartment while she's still in it, or the group of drunks on the train. all classic Sturges... loud, over the top scenes. it all moves right along, with a snappy script and story. Vallee is the rich guy who may or may not come to Gerry's rescue. and that surprise ending... where did that come from? but it's fun. a lot of fun. definitely worth catching this one! Written and directed by Preston Sturges. one of only fourteen films he directed. all clever and fun.