One of the all time great screwball comedies is out on blu-ray this week, and it's from one of the masters of the genre, Preston Sturges. Sturges wrote and directed all his films, and the first time you ever see one you might be thrown for a loop, because they're basically nothing like movies that get made now- the pace is extremely fast, the dialogue is insane, and the plot twists sometimes verge on ludicrous, yet that's all part of what defined "screwball" in the '30's and '40's. This is one of the best, with Claudette Colbert as a wife who decides her financially struggling husband (Joel McCrea) would be better off without her, so she runs off to Florida and ends up the house guest of a very rich and ridiculous brother and sister, while McCrea tries everything to get her back. It defies explanation too much, because the plot gets nuttier and nuttier, but you should give it a chance if you're interested in checking out the kind of film they used to make that no longer exists. It's a good one.
Original 1942 Trailer:
