Preston Sturges - The Filmmaker Collection (1940)

Preston Sturges - The Filmmaker Collection

Bought because of REASONABLE PRICE on Lady Eve... Familiar with Sullivan's Travels and The Palm Beach Story... Put in The great McGinty, could not stop watching... Truly a great addition to any 30s and 40s FILM NUT collection... Quality very good, considering this is not restored versions... September 18, 2008

Great films, very poor quality transfer

This is a great collection of films by a comedy genius.

Sadly the transfer done by Universal is muddy, without contrast and grainy. In fact, it was so bad, (and far worse than any of the other 40's films in my collection), that I had to ask myself if this was a pirated print!

By comparing this collection to original videotapes of the same films as well as off-air tapings from the Studio Universal channel, one can see that this collection simply did not receive the quality transfer treatment that was truly merited.

What a shame. Preston Sturges deserved better. April 16, 2008

Be sure you're a fan

Before laying out the big price for this superbly reproduced collection, you must be sure you're a Preston Sturges fan. See the first 20 minutes of Sullivan's Travels or the first half hour of Hail The Conquering Hero. Did you think that was funny? If so, you're a fan. Now I love the screwball comedies of the 1930s, and I like Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and the Three Stooges. Most black comedy appeals to me. I have, in short, a large sense of humor. But I cannot, for the life of me, fathom the alleged humor in Sturges. A script with a million words, constant and frantic action, and the crudest forms of slapstick leave me cold. Check out the fire scene early in Hail The Conquering Hero. Did you roar with laughter as people aimed firehoses at each other. Then you're a Sturges fan. Not I. March 1, 2008

Worthy collection for Sturgess fans, old and new

I already own three of the films in this collection and enjoy them regularly. The collection, however, is an excellent conglomeration of the breadth of Preston Sturgess's abilities as a writer and director. A different kind of social commentator than his contemporary, Frank Capra, Sturgess took outlandish situations and pushed them to just one notch shy of absurdity and still treated his audience to valid and hilarious discourses on the Human Condition.

If you have not seen any of Sturgess's work, this is an outstanding collection to learn what he was about. If you are familiar with his work, you will be happily surprised with some of the more obscure works found here.

The oddball in the mix is "The Great Moment" which is a quasi-biography and costume piece with Joel McCrea about the development of ether as an anesthetic. Sturgess liked to use what amounted to a repertory company of character actors that filled the major and minor roles in his films, and The Great Moment is no exception.

My favorite in these is still "The Lady Eve" which I've owned previously. The story and acting, and especially the direction, is of a quality that puts this among the best of any movie. If you want to study this movie, get the Criterion Collection version which includes insightful analyses and interviews that describe some of its subtle virtues, but if you want to just enjoy a highly enjoyable film, this one's fine.

"Sullivan's Travels" features Joel McCrea again and an adorable Veronica Lake in a comedy that takes a turn for the worse for the idealistic hero but then turns out okay in the end, lesson learned. "Hail, the Conquering Hero" and "Christmas In July" set up the lead characters with situations they didn't create but for which they have to bear the consequences. "The Palm Beach Story" is a lark, and "The Great McGinty" a bit more serious, but both explore the ramifications of a series of questionable decisions made by their lead characters. In the case of The Great McGinty, which is Sturgess's first effort as a writer/director, the quality is not as polished as later efforts, but he clearly can be seen to grow as both a writer and director with subsequent films in the collection.

Two outstanding Sturgess films that are NOT included in this collection are "Unfaithfully Yours" with Rex Harrison and "Miracle of Morgan's Creek" with Eddie Bracken (made the same year as Conquering Hero. If you like what you see in this collection, please consider adding these last two to your library as well. February 27, 2008

Don't buy Preston Sturgis Collection

Awful. Don't buy the series. Not worth the money. Wish I could send it back. December 22, 2007

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