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 They note that Preston Sturges wrote and directed this film and that he was at
his "unpredictable best." This is a story of "love and money set in glitzy
Palm Beach." Claudette Colbert is the wife of an engineer who is struggling
professionally. She goes to Palm Beach for an easy divorce. On the train she
meets up with the "world's richest" man and he falls for her. Once in Palm
Beach, Colbert runs into her husband (Joel McCrea), but the world's richest
man's sister is after him. This is touted as having "intensely humorous
dialogue, flirtatious situations, and a splendid soundtrack." 1942, 88 minutes, VHS
This is a bit of fluff, your enjoyment of which will depend on how much you
care about whether these situations could ever happen in real life. If you go
into it, wanting to be entertained and to laugh, you'll be just fine. If you
expect it to resemble anything remotely like reality, then you'll probably be
put off by the whacky shenanigans that ensue (and if that's the kind of person
you are, then you probably wouldn't be wasting your time reading this anyway.
You'd probably be out balancing your checkbook or cleaning out your gutters).
This is one of several Preston Sturges' vehicles that he wrote and directed in
the early forties, each of them meeting with some degree of success and most of
them remembered today as classics. Claudette Colbert, whom we last saw being a
really strong war time nurse in the melodrama, So Proudly We Hail, is the centerpiece of this comedic farce. She easily shows us in this film
why she's more remembered for her comedy roles than her dramatic ones (though I
would say she was equally adept at both). The movie doesn't try to hide its
hijinks-like attitude and the opening credits give one a clue that things are
probably going to be way out of control from the beginning. Things start off
with this montage of frantic activity that shows the trials and tribulations of
Colbert's Gerry and Joel McCrea's Tom as they try to get married. Lots
goes on including a scene where Gerry is bound and gagged in a room (Whoa!
Save that for the honeymoon, guys!) with someone apparently trying to thwart
their wedding. Finally they are able to get married and then the screen says
"they lived happily ever after...or did they?" The end credits are likewise a
hubbub of bizarre activity. Something involving twin sisters and brothers of
Gerry and Tom (um, yeah, Preston, I think that maybe you've completely careened
over the cliff with that development.) Those bookends should give you an idea
of
what to expect from the rest of the movie.  Like the Cary Grant/Irene Dunne vehicle, The Awful Truth, this screwball comedy starts not with our characters getting to know one
another before ultimately hooking up, but with them on the brink of divorce.
In this movie though, the idea of divorce to Gerry and Tom doesn't seem too
distressing and their discussions about it are devoid of anything resembling
passion. They almost act as though they're just a couple of friends. The
reason
for their divorce is the usual: the man ain't making enough bread for the
woman. Tom is a struggling engineer and I'm assuming that the fact he is
struggling in his work has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that his "big
idea" for an invention is a new fangled airport. You're probably saying, "hey,
that's great! We could use a design that would make the airport easier to
use." I would of course agree with that, but I have to believe that there's a
better way than stringing a gigantic net across the sky over the city and
having planes land on it. See, that's what this geek is proposing, a
thingamabob kind of like the netting behind home plate or that they raise at
some football games in the endzone when you're kicking the extra point. Tom
only needs $99,000 to build a prototype of this futuristic airport of the
1950s, but surprisingly he doesn't have any takers. That would be the only
realistic thing that happens in this film. So, Gerry, who likes to lounge
around their fabulous penthouse in her silk dressing gown is starting to think
that maybe she hitched her wagon to a guy that probably thought Crystal Pepsi
or Burger King's Herb was a good idea (but even he knew that BKTV with Dan
Cortese reeked) and that maybe the fishnet airport isn't going to be the answer
to anything except the punchline to a bad joke and now she wants out! Enter
the Weinie King. The Weinie King is this old geezer who is real hard of
hearing but has made a fortune in the sausage business. He and his wife are
coming by Gerry and Tom's swanky place to see about renting it, since the
royalties on the netport haven't yet begun to roll in for Tom. Gerry is at
home while this is going on and hides in the shower. The Weinie King finds her
and gives her a wad of cash to pay off the rent and to get something nice for
herself. The scenes between her and the King are hilarious, but you and I know
both know that in real life, old timers that don't hear so good are anything
but funny.  Tom is a bit of a hot head. How else to explain the fact that he was torqued
off when he found out his wife had accepted money from a guy named the Weinie
King that she met in their shower? I mean, it's not as if he was named the
Weiner
King. In spite of his rage, they go out for a night on the town, get tipsy,
knock boots, then she deserts him in the morning. Tom is not going gently into
that good night though. He chases after, at one point having a cop hold her
for "stealing his luggage." Then he chases her down to Penn Station or some
really big place where trains arrive and depart (I guess the netport was
closed). There he is harassed by cops because she claims he's a stalker or
something. The plan is that she is going to Palm Beach where you can get a
quick divorce. The only problem, is that she doesn't have a ticket, so she
shamelessly plays up the damsel in distress routine as the other passengers
board. Luckily for her, a group of rich guys belonging to something called The
Ale and Quail Club (or was it the other way around) are all going on this train
and eventually they vote to get her a ticket and have her be their mascot. I
guess that was 1940s talk for "gang bang" (can I say that?). She eagerly
boards the train leaving hubby in the dust. Once on the train, the
monkeyshines really heat up. Back in the 40s, I guess there weren't the
"security concerns" we live with today, because these Ale and Quail dudes are
allowed to board the train with their shotguns and ammo. Mix well with plenty
of "ale" and you have a recipe that's gotten my cousin Pookie locked up in
County more times than any of us can count. The Ale and Quail crew have their
very own passenger car and expect that their mascot will sleep in the car (hey,
her ticket cost money, after all). So they let her borrow a pair of pajamas
(note to you fans of foreign horror movies of the sixties and seventies: in
spite of what you have seen in those films, the concept of the see-through
nightgown is one that exists solely in those cheesy exploitation movies and not
in real life or in "decent" films. If Sabrina, The Teenage Witch is ever finally cancelled and you leave the room you "rent" from your mom and
find a woman of your own, she will only bust out the see-through nightie early
on in your relationship and even then about once - like the night you bought
it. Once she's got you hooked, it's over-sized nightshirts with Garfield and
Moonpie crumbs on the front of it.) The A&Q Club sing a bunch of songs to try
and serenade her to sleep. Whenever they do, their dogs (yep, they brought
them along with the guns) howl in unison, so she sneaks out of their car to try
and find someplace quiet to sleep. Enter the richest man in the world (even
richer than the Weinie King!).  Gerry goes to the sleeping car and peeks in the berths until she locates an
empty one up top. In her efforts to climb into it, she manages to step on this
guy's face (Whoa, don't be giving that away sister!) and breaks his prissy
little spectacles (they're the kind that just sit on your nose). They have a
little discussion and by this time those drunk hunters have figured out that
their mascot has disappeared. They cry havoc and let slip the hounds of war on
her, going through the train with the yapping mutts searching for her. They
don't find her and in the morning she hangs out with the dude with the busted
glasses. He's a tall, beefy, goofy looking fellow prone to speak like he was
Data on that crappy Star Trek series that didn't star Shatner. The home viewer immediately relishes the
opportunity Joel McCrea will have to plant this sucker in the ground for going
after his woman. This guy treats Gerry like a queen, buying her an expensive
breakfast and then taking her to town to buy some clothes and things. I
suppose I should say something about the fate of the Ale and Quail Club. They
take this trip every year and apparently have this running feud with the
conductor who is one of those wet blanket types that can't appreciate a good
coon dog and a thirty pack of Keystone (Is he a monk or something?) on board
his train. Well, the Ale and Quail Club may have stepped over the line when
they
were in their car at and had the bartender (please ignore the racial
stereotyping in this scene) throw some Saltines up in the air like a bunch of
clay
pigeons. In an effort to keep their hunting edge, some of the guys actually
start shooting at the crackers and blast holes all over the train car.
Eventually, the rest of the club hears the gunshots and come rushing in to see
if maybe, someone, needs some help bringing down those tricky crackers. The
dogs are there, too, barking up a storm. The conductor, being the party pooper
he is, just has the car disconnected and left on a side track and drives off
without them. If you were fans of the Beer and Deer Club, you can tune out
now, because they don't ever reappear. Back on the train, Gerry tells this
fancy lad that's letting her eat all the pancakes her elastic jeans will allow,
that she just doesn't have any clothes and he says they'll stop at the next
town and she get what she needs there. What follows is a montage of spending
that pretty much made it obvious that this dude had gotten his $300 from W and
was single-handedly trying to kickstart the economy. She finds out that he is
none other than J.D. Hackensacker (which did not remind me at all of J.D.
Rockefeller), the richest man in the world. Gerry knows she just won the
lottery and not the Polish Lottery either (e-mail me if you don't know that
joke). They then hop on his yacht to finish the trip down to Palm Beach. Like
most of the good rich people in these types of movies, he's a little wacky (he
writes all his purchases down in a book, but never adds them up!) and not at
all snooty. We all know that in the real life this is about as likely as an
amusing old fart who is hearing impaired. And what of the Weinie King? And
Tom? And his Jetsons style airport? Somehow or other Tom encounters the Weinie King back at his luxurious penthouse
suite and they exchange words before the King comes across with some cash for
Tom to fly down to Palm Beach and meet Gerry there. He gets there and finds
her in the clutches of this rich dude. Gerry, sensing the opportunity for
further screwball situations says that Tom is her brother, inexplicably named
Captain McGlue. Capt. McGlue is less than thrilled by this turn of events
since he wants his wife back and since Hackensacker's irritating and mentally
disturbed sister then shows up and gloms onto McGlue for her very own. I
should also note that the sister has some type of male hussy in tow, named
Toto. It seems to be a running joke that no one knows what country he is from
and what language he is speaking. One would guess though, by his babytalk
speech and his shifty look that he is most likely French and is really named
something like "Dirty Pierre." There's more complications since Gerry has led
Hackensacker to believe that her husband is some type of brute that beats her
and because she is using Hackensacker to get money for the airport with the net
that was all the rage way back in 1942. Eventually, and unfortunately only
after an excruciating musical number by Hackensacker, the truth about everyone
comes out and Hackensacker wishes that Gerry had a sister. She does and she's
a twin! And Tom has a twin brother! And the twins get married to the
Hackensacker siblings and they all live happily ever after or did they? As you
can see, nothing is to be taken seriously in this movie. The problems these
people have never feel like anything more than contrived situations that exist
soley as a springboard to wacky situations. I mean, this whole divorce thing
is treated in a pretty blase manner, at least until Gerry actually leaves. Of
course Tom's pursuit of her doesn't seem all that desperate. After all, he
hangs out in Palm Beach for awhile playing along with the whole Captain McGlue
angle instead of just busting the rich snob in his rich mouth. He even allows
the annoying sister to hang all over him during this. Some of you may object
to the fact that Gerry's entire worth seems to predicated on her looks. She
openly admits that she can't cook or sew and talks about using her looks to get
a better husband down the road. Throughout the movie she uses her beauty to
gets things from men, from Hackensacker, to the A&Q Club, to the Weinie King
(though hunky Joel McCrea got some dough off him too - that might tell you
more about the Weinie King than about Gerry or Tom). The movie also manages to
wrap everything up without any problems and with Gerry and Tom happy together
and getting the money for that stupid airport. I think you should probably
look at this as some type of twisted domestic fantasy, because it is very funny
and is well worth watching in spite of (because of?) its outlandishness. You
won't believe anything that happens here, but you'll be laughing too hard to
care.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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