''The Palm Beach Story'' is a 1942
screwball comedy film written and directed by
Preston Sturges, and starring
Claudette Colbert,
Joel McCrea,
Mary Astor and
Rudy Vallée.
Victor Young
Albert Victor Young (August 8, 1899– November 10, 1956)"Victor Young, Composer, Dies of Heart Attack", ''Oakland Tribune'', November 12, 1956. was an American composer, arranger, violinist and conductor.
Biography
Young is commonly said to ...
contributed the musical score, including a fast-paced variation of the ''
William Tell Overture'' for the opening scenes. Typical of a Sturges film, the pacing and dialogue of ''The Palm Beach Story'' are very fast.
Plot
Inventor Tom Jeffers and his wife Gerry are down on their luck financially. Married for five years, the couple are still waiting for Tom's ship to come in. Anxious for the finer things in a life she's no longer enjoying, Gerry decides that they both would be better off if they split. Before she can act she ends up entangled with the Wienie King, a strange old man being shown round her apartment with his wife by a building manager anxious to rent it out from beneath his delinquent tenants. Sympathetic to her plight - and utterly taken by her youth and charm - the man gives her $700 from the giant roll of cash he keeps in his pocket. This is enough to get their rent current, pay off their most urgent bills, buy a new dress, take Tom to an expensive dinner, and still leave $14 and change pocket money for him.
In spite of a night of amour that followed their tipsy return home, she awakens early, packs a bag, and makes for the train station. Bound for Palm Beach, Florida, her plan is to get a divorce, meet a wealthy man who can both give her what she craves and also help Tom, and marry him. Penniless, and repeatedly escaping from Tom's clutches, she is invited to travel gratis as guest of the rich and soused Ale and Quail Club on their private car.
When it proves too rowdy, she flees for an upper berth in a nearby
Pullman car, in the process meeting the meek, eccentric, but amiable John D. Hackensacker III, who begins to fall for her immediately.
Left without even her clothes or purse in the chaos of her flight from the Ale and Quail reverie, she willingly accepts Hackensacker's initial chivalrous charity. Which takes a dramatic turn towards extravagance during a shopping spree for ladies finery he instigates in Jacksonville, swirling from trifles to ''haute couture'' and jewelry encrusted with precious stones.
Only when he hands over a card upon telling the store manager to charge it all to him is it revealed he is one of the richest men in the world and owner of the ''Erl King'', a fabulous yacht which the twosome board for the final leg to Palm Beach.
Back in New York the despondent Tom receives the same kind of generous no-strings-attached charity from the Wienie King he had accused Gerry of trading sexual favors for, helping clear his mind. The King encourages him to rent a plane, fly to Florida, and show up with a bouquet of roses to win back his bride.
Arriving at the railhead in Palm Beach Tom is directed to the dock for Hackensacker's yacht, where he sees the affectionate new couple still aboard. Failing to run him off on shore, a flustered Gerry introduces Tom as her brother, Captain McGlue. Hackensacker's oft-married, man-hungry sister, Princess Centimillia, is immediately smitten with him, and dismisses her previous lover, still in tow, Toto, as a valet.
When Gerry tells Hackensacker, who is working his way round to propose to her, that her "brother" is partners with her husband in the same investment, Hackensacker agrees to back it, saying he likes the Captain and it will keep it "all in the family" once they are married.
Invited to stay at the Princess' estate, the Jeffers try valiantly to maintain their farce – Tom reluctantly, wrangling to win Gerry back, and Gerry determinedly seeking to stick to her original plan. Until, to the strains of Hackensacker crooning love songs over a rented orchestra assembled beneath their windows, the couple end up romantically entangled the same way they had their very last night together. With the same impassioned result.
Unmasked the next morning, they are reunited as one and confess the ruse to the Hackensackers. After John agrees to finance Tom's invention as simply a "good investment", sans sentimentality, the matter is begged whether Tom and Gerry have a brother and sister. They do...''twins!''
There is an elaborate dual wedding, with Tom as best man and Gerry as matron of honor, John hand-in-hand with Gerry's sister and the Princess with Tom's brother. A title card tells us that they "lived happily ever after...or did they?", before credits roll.
Cast
*
Claudette Colbert as Geraldine "Gerry" Jeffers
*
Joel McCrea as Tom Jeffers (alias "Captain McGlue")
*
Mary Astor as The Princess Centimillia (Maud)
*
Rudy Vallée as John D. Hackensacker III
*
Sig Arno as Toto
*
Robert Dudley as Wienie King
*
Esther Howard as Wife of Wienie King
*
Franklin Pangborn as Apartment Manager
*
Arthur Hoyt as Pullman Conductor
*
Al Bridge as Conductor
*
Fred "Snowflake" Toones
Fred "Snowflake" Toones (January 5, 1906 – February 13, 1962) was an American actor and comedian. He appeared in over 200 films in his career spanning 23 years.
Career
He appeared in over 200 films between 1928 and 1951. His standard cha ...
as George, Club Car Bartender
*
Charles R. Moore as Train Porter
*
Frank Moran
Francis Charles Moran (18 March 1887 – 14 December 1967) was an American boxer and film actor who fought twice for the Heavyweight Championship of the World, and appeared in over 135 movies in a 25-year film career.
Sports career
Born i ...
as Brakeman
*
Harry Rosenthal
Harry Rosenthal (15 May c. 1893 – 10 May 1953) was an orchestra leader, composer, pianist and actor.
Biography
Rosenthal was born in Belfast in 1893, and by the 1920s he was in London where he had a thriving musical career as a composer ...
as Orchestra Leader
*
J. Farrell MacDonald
John Farrell MacDonald (June 6, 1875 – August 2, 1952) was an American character actor and director. He played supporting roles and occasional leads. He appeared in over 325 films over a four-decade career from 1911 to 1951, and directed fort ...
as Officer O'Donnell
''The Ale and Quail Club:''
*
Robert Warwick
Robert Warwick (born Robert Taylor Bien, October 9, 1878 – June 6, 1964) was an American stage, film and television actor with over 200 film appearances. A matinee idol during the silent film era, he also prospered after the introduction ...
as Mr. Hinch
* Arthur Stuart Hull as Mr. Osmond
*
Torben Meyer
Torben Emil Meyer (1 December 1884 – 22 May 1975) was a Danish-American character actor who appeared in more than 190 films in a 55-year career. He began his acting career in Europe before moving to the United States.
Early life
Meyer was ...
as Dr. Kluck
*
Victor Potel as Mr. McKeewie
*
Jimmy Conlin
Jimmy Conlin (October 14, 1884 – May 7, 1962) was an American character actor who appeared in almost 150 films in his 32-year career.
Career
Conlin was born in Camden, New Jersey in 1884, and his acting career started out in vaudeville, ...
as Mr. Asweld
* Unnamed members played by:
**
William Demarest
**
Jack Norton
**
Robert Greig
**
Roscoe Ates
**
Dewey Robinson
**
Chester Conklin
** Sheldon Jett
Production
At least part of the initial inspiration for ''The Palm Beach Story'' may have come to
Preston Sturges from close to home. Not only had he shuttled back and forth to Europe as a young man, his ex-wife Eleanor Hutton was an heiress who moved among the European aristocracy, and had once been wooed by Prince Jerome Rospigliosi-Gioeni. One scene in the film is based upon an incident that had happened to Sturges and his mother while traveling by train to Paris, where the car with their compartment and baggage was uncoupled while they were in the dining car.
[Stafford, Jef]
"The Palm Beach Story" (TCM article)
/ref>
The story Sturges came up with was entitled ''Is Marriage Necessary?'', which, along with an alternative, ''Is That Bad?'', became a working title for the film. The original title was rejected by Hays Office censors, who also rejected the script submitted by Paramount
Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to:
Entertainment and music companies
* Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. The following busin ...
over its "sex suggestive situations...and dialogue." In spite of changes the script was still tabled because of its "light treatment of marriage and divorce" and overt parodying of John D. Rockefeller
John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American business magnate and philanthropist. He has been widely considered the wealthiest American of all time and the richest person in modern history. Rockefeller was ...
. More changes were made, including reducing Princess Centimillia's divorces from eight to three (plus two annulments), before the script finally was approved.[TC]
Notes
/ref>
This was Sturges' second collaboration with Joel McCrea, following '' Sullivan's Travels'' from the previous year and they worked again on '' The Great Moment'', filmed in 1942 (but released in 1944). Although Colbert and Sturges worked on '' The Big Pond'' (1930) and the first version of '' Imitation of Life'' (1934), ''The Palm Beach Story'' was the only time they worked on a movie Sturges wrote and directed.
The movie was Rudy Vallee's first outright comedic role, and he gained a contract with Paramount, as well as an award for Best Actor of 1942 from the National Board of Review. He appeared in Sturges' '' The Sin of Harold Diddlebock'', '' Unfaithfully Yours'' and '' The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend''.
Many members of Sturges' unofficial "stock company" of character actors appear in film, such as Al Bridges, Chester Conklin, Jimmy Conlin, William Demarest, Robert Dudley, Byron Foulger, Robert Greig, Harry Hayden, Arthur Hoyt, Torben Meyer, Frank Moran, Charles R. Moore, Jack Norton, Franklin Pangborn, Victor Potel, Dewey Robinson, Harry Rosenthal, Julius Tannen and Robert Warwick.
This was the seventh of ten films written by Preston Sturges in which William Demarest appeared.
Claudette Colbert received $150,000 for her role, and Joel McCrea was paid $60,000.
The second unit did background shooting at Penn Station Pennsylvania Station is a name applied by the Pennsylvania Railroad to several of its grand passenger terminals.
Pennsylvania Station or Penn Station may also refer to
Current train stations
* Baltimore Penn Station
* Pennsylvania Station (Cinci ...
in Manhattan. The film went into general release on 1 January 1943. It was released on video in the U.S. on 12 July 1990 and re-released on 30 June 1993.
Reception
In 1998, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the ''Chicago Reader'' included the film in his unranked list of the best American films not included on the AFI Top 100.
In 2000, the American Film Institute
The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees.
Leade ...
included the film in AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs (#77).
References
External links
*
*
*
*
Archival NYTimes Review By Bosley Crowther, December 11, 1942
Greatest Films- The Palm Beach Story
Critique and thorough plot description/analysis.
at Portico
''The Palm Beach Story''
on Screen Guild Theater: March 15, 1943
''The Palm Beach Story: Love in a Warm Climate''
an essay by Stephanie Zacharek for the Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Palm Beach Story, The
1942 films
1942 romantic comedy films
1940s screwball comedy films
American romantic comedy films
American screwball comedy films
American black-and-white films
Films about twins
Films scored by Victor Young
Films directed by Preston Sturges
Films set in Florida
Rail transport films
Films with screenplays by Preston Sturges
Paramount Pictures films
1940s American films