David Vining's Blog, page 45

Hail the Conquering Hero

After the manic, fly by the seat of his pants production of The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, an entertaining enough film running on charm and performance more than anything else, Preston Sturges comes back with another intersection of Lubitsch and Capra which may end up being my favorite of his work. This portrait of wannabe hero coming home to a hero’s welcome over his own objections has all of the focus that I was missing in Sturges’ previous film. This is a delight with a wonderful dramatic...

A Few New Trailers

Busy time for marketing departments.

First is Joseph Kosinski’s follow up to Top Gun Maverick, the Brad Pitt led F1. Hard to tell what it’s going to be about all that much other than probably some underdog story in the F1 world, but Kosinski’s managed three solidly good films in his short career. The special effects look effective enough to where stupid people will believe that it’s all practical. Could be fun.

Next is Time Bandits, the AppleTV+ show from Taika Waititi. Apparentl...

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek

I think it’s pretty obvious that Preston Sturges didn’t really understand where he was going when he went into production of The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek. It’s not that it’s bad. It’s funny consistently through because Sturges had a good finger on the comedic side of things pretty much no matter what. However, there’s no center to this beyond the mystery of what the eponymous miracle is, and it’s honestly not that much of a mystery that gets any real attention throughout the film. Instead, ...

The Palm Beach Story

Another foray into delightfulness within the battle of the sexes, and another script showcasing not only Preston Sturges’ influence from Lubitsch but also his rigid approach to structure, providing some of the most potent examples of a three-act structure I can think of. I’m not complaining. Sturges makes it work very well. It’s just kind of interesting because there’s no doubt where his acts begin and end. Anyway, this is probably the broadest film Sturges’ had made up to this point, but it...

Sullivan’s Travels

What if Frank Capra and Ernst Lubitsch got together and made a movie together? It’d be a whole lot like Sullivan’s Travels, I think. Sturges obviously name-drops both directors (Lubitsch a whole lot more than Capra because Lubitsch is something of a small plot point), and reportedly this is actually something of a reaction to Capra’s efforts to make his films of the era, most particularly, it seems, Meet John Doe, which came out nine days before Sullivan’s Travels entered production. Sturges...

The Lady Eve

I swear, if Preston Sturges wasn’t inspired by Ernst Lubitsch, I will eat my hat. Here we have a battle of the sexes, differences in class, mostly set in the high society, and heavy elements of masquerade. There’s even a strong attempt at the super joke, the Lubitsch Touch. It’s practically a Billy Wilder movie! It’s also a delight, a bit more chaste than either Lubitsch or Wilder would have gone, and filled with wonderful performances from the central pair down through the entire supporting...

Christmas in July

Preston Sturges’ second film as director is an adaptation of his own play, A Cup of Coffee. It’s a quick 67-minute long feature that, much like Sturges’ previous film, The Great McGinty, has certain Capra-esque vibes while also feeling more in line tonally with the script he wrote for William Wyler that became The Good Fairy. It’s a light story based on miscommunication worthy of a sitcom episode, but there’s enough warmth and humanity in the writing and the performances, mixed with a nice b...

The Great McGinty

Preston Sturges was the best paid writer in America, and he wanted his chance at directing the feature films that he’d been writing for people like William Wyler, Mitchell Leisen, and James Whale. So, he sold this script to Paramount for $10 in exchange for him getting to direct the project. That it ended up winning him the Academy Award for Best Screenplay is something of a small cinematic irony, I guess. Born of speaking with people who had experience in corrupt machine politics in places ...

Preston Sturges: A Statement of Purpose

So, I have a slightly better reason to take on the works of Preston Sturges than my usual, “Why not?” malarky.

Firstly, my mother recommended him as a topic a year or two ago. I agreed, but I didn’t have room yet to put him on the schedule. And then, a few months back, I was working from home and decided to put something on to play in the background. I chose to watch William Wyler’s The Good Fairy again, but this time with the audio commentary by Simon Abrams. It’s not the best commentary...

William Friedkin: The Definitive Ranking

I think I have a much better handle on who William Friedkin was as an artist. He was a few major things, but I think that the exploration of his filmography has shown that he’s more than what his best known two or three films imply. The French Connection and The Exorcist seem to imply that he was genre-focused and intense, but that hits up against stuff like The Birthday Party or The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. Well, who was he? I’d call him an actor’s director who understand cinematic langu...