Director Preston Sturges has a reputation as one of the better writer-directors of the the studio period in Hollywood. The Palm Beach Story (1942) is the third film of his I have seen (the others were Unfaithfully Yours and Sullivan's Travels). This one is more like a classic screwball comedy and stars Joel McCrea and Claudett Colbert as struggling married couple, Tom and Gerry Jeffers, in New York. Gerry decides to go to Palm Beach to get a divorce and raise money for Tom's futuristic airport plan. Hilarity ensues as Gerry meets up with the Gun and Ale Club on the train down and when she meets a millionaire (Rudy Vallee) and his sister (Mary Astor). Lots of great back and forth dialogue adn goofy happenings throughout. The Criterion treatment includes:an ew 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray, new interview with writer and film historian James Harvey about director Preston Sturges, new interview with actor and comedian Bill Hader about Sturges, Safeguarding Military Information, a 1941 World War II propaganda short written by Sturges, Screen Guild Theater radio adaptation of the film from March 1943, and an essay by critic Stephanie Zacharek.
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