Review of The Palm Beach Story (1942) by Luc L — 03 Mar 2013

Not the Best Sturges Out There.

Preston Sturges always had a complicated relationship with the Production Code. The original title for this film was "Is Marriage Necessary?" As you can imagine, this was not approved by Joe Breen. Then again, his next film was the considerably funnier, considerably more shocking [i]Miracle of Morgan's Creek[/i], a film about a woman who either got pregnant out of wedlock or else committed bigamy, depending on which interpretation of the story you prefer. And it featured a family by the name of Kockenlocker. By those standards, this film is pretty much tame. Yeah, the story is still a little disturbing, as we'll get to in a minute, and honestly it's more unsettling by today's standards than [i]Morgan's Creek[/i], which is among other things considerably less calculated. Trudy Kockenlocker gets herself into a ridiculous situation because she didn't think; the problem with these characters is that they are thinking.

This is the story of Gerry (Claudette Colbert) and Tom (Joel McCrea) Jeffers, a young couple who fell hopelessly in love and got married, only to discover that two cannot, in fact, live as cheaply as one. Especially when one is crazy jealous and sabotages working relationships when men hit on his wife. Or even just mildly flirt with, by the sound of things. Gerry decides that the best solution to the problem is to divorce Tom, marry a wealthy man, and use her new husband's funds to finance Tom's invention. So that's a thing to do, I suppose. She manages to finagle her way onto a train to Palm Beach by flirting with the members of the "Ale and Quail Club." While on the train, she meets wealthy J. D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee), who takes care of her after the Ale and Quail Club's car gets left on a siding somewhere--along with her clothes. Tom manages to get to Palm Beach himself, where he promptly catches the eye of J. D.'s oft-divorced sister, currently the Princess Centimillia (Mary Astor).

You see what I mean. She's basically prostituting herself to J. D. She doesn't dislike him, but she also doesn't seem to be all that attracted to him. She doesn't seem to be all that attracted to Tom, come to that; no one in the movie really seems to have chemistry with anyone else in the movie. However, there isn't even having his best interests at heart, the way there is with Tom. She's embarrassed that he's spending as much money on her as he is, at least at first, but her plan is to get men to pay for, you know, everything. She cons the cabbie into a ride to the station. She cons the Ale and Quail Club into a ride to Palm Beach. We don't know how much J. D. spends on that first shopping trip, but he buys her a $300 dress--in, let's be clear, 1942. (Apparently, this equates to over $4000 in 2012 dollars!) Her embarrassment doesn't last for long. Though I will say it's better than hanging out with the gun nuts she gets on the train with.

As for Tom, he's pretty much a cipher. Joel McCrea was never exactly the King of Charisma, as far as I'm concerned, though he was entertaining enough to watch. However, it's hard for me to see him as the impassioned lover he has to be in order to make the story work. I don't mean to say that I think he'd just let Gerry go, but I don't think he'd go along with her dimwitted story, either. The whole story is shaky, even aside from the dubious morality. I don't see Tom as being crazy in love with Gerry; I'm not even sure he likes her very much. There's not much to like about her as far as I can see. Tom is a nice enough guy, even if his airport idea is dumb, but I rather think he'd be happiest if he just took off and let all these people figure things out on their own. He seems smart enough so that I'm sure he can find a backer if he only manages to get away from Gerry. All his problems seem to be related to her, and she doesn't seem to be worth it.

The final point I'd like to make, here, requires spoilers. It indicates to me that all these people really are completely interchangeable. We find out literally minutes from the end that the thing that first attracted Tom and Gerry to one another is that they are both twins. (It isn't even the dumb joke of their names!) So okay, this means that they get to stay married to one another--that part, you knew was coming--and J. D. and Centimillia get to marry the twin! Of course, twins do not have matching personalities at all times. I've known several pairs of twins over the years, and while mostly, they're similar, you can't assume that. Certainly they're not identical enough in most cases that you can marry one assuming that they will be exactly like the other, with whom you've fallen in love. None of these people are interested in one another's personalities, because none of them really have much personality to be interested in. No, if I'm going to watch Preston Sturges, I'll just go watch [i]Miracle of Morgan's Creek[/i] again.