Crooked, but Never Common

The Films of Preston Sturges

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by Stuart Klawans

Type: Studies
Subject: Director > Preston Sturges
Keywords: Preston Sturges, director, analysis
Publishing date: 2023
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Language: English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Hardcover • 376 pages
5 ½ x 8 ¾ inches (14 x 22 cm)

ISBN

978-0-231-20728-7

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Book Presentation:
In a burst of creativity unmatched in Hollywood history, Preston Sturges directed a string of all-time classic comedies from 1939 through 1948—The Great McGinty, The Lady Eve, Sullivan’s Travels, The Palm Beach Story, and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek among them—all from screenplays he alone had written. Cynical and sophisticated, romantic and sexually frank, crazily breakneck and endlessly witty, his movies continue to influence filmmakers and remain popular to this day. Yet despite this acclaim, Sturges’s achievements remain underappreciated: he is too often categorized as a dialogue writer and plot engineer more than a director, or belittled as an irresponsible spinner of laughs.

In Crooked, but Never Common, Stuart Klawans combines a critic’s insight and a fan’s enthusiasm to offer deeper ways to think about and enjoy Sturges’s work. He provides an in-depth appreciation of all ten of the writer-director’s major movies, presenting Sturges as a filmmaker whose work balanced slapstick and social critique, American and European traditions, and cynicism and affection for his characters. Tugging at loose threads—discontinuities, puzzles, and allusions that have dangled in plain sight—and putting the films into a broader cultural context, Klawans reveals structures, motives, and meanings underlying the uproarious pleasures of Sturges’s movies. In this new light, Sturges emerges at last as one of the truly great filmmakers—and funnier than ever.

About the Author:
Stuart Klawans was the longtime film critic for the Nation, for which he received a National Magazine Award. He is the author of Film Follies: The Cinema Out of Order (1999) and has contributed to the New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, Film Comment, and Parnassus: Poetry in Review.

Press Reviews:
From one of our finest critics, an elegant and deftly argued contribution to our appreciation of the great and glorious Preston Sturges. Stuart Klawans teases out inspired connections in the culture surrounding the director—the books, paintings, and legends that fed the artistry of a man who refused to call himself an artist. The kind of book that makes you want to dive back into the films for fresh stimulation and delight. Molly Haskell, film critic and author

Stuart Klawans has extended and upended the field with takes that are as witty and audacious as his subject. One has only to read his wry unpacking of the contradictions in Sullivan’s Travels or his sympathetic dissections of my own favorites, The Lady Eve and Unfaithfully Yours. Klawans really knows these films, has a nuanced understanding of cinema in general, writes beautifully, and is the best, most trustworthy guide imaginable to the genius of Preston Sturges. A triumph. Phillip Lopate, author of Totally, Tenderly, Tragically

Stuart Klawans’s deep dive into the films of Preston Sturges is a gift for cinephiles. Whether providing context or close analysis, his tone is witty and accessible as well as erudite and profound. Annette Insdorf, author of Cinematic Overtures: How to Read Opening Scenes

Nobody wrote better screenplays than Preston Sturges, whose dialogue remains among the most sparkling ever committed to the screen. Yet, until now, his achievements as a visual artist have been overlooked. Klawans’s wonderful new study has finally remedied that, demonstrating that Sturges was an artist as skilled with the camera as he was with a typewriter. Richard Peña, director emeritus, New York Film Festival, and professor of film and media studies, Columbia University

[A] portrait of a director with a gift for character development and 'head-spinning dialogue executed at high speed' by an author with a keen critical eye and plenty of flair in his own writing. Film buffs will relish this. Publishers Weekly

It’s obvious Klawans has pored over Sturges’s films. After reading his thoughtful analyses, film buffs will want to rewatch them, armed with new insights. Library Journal, starred review

[Klawans] carefully shows how these complicated comedies work, exploring what one might call Sturges’s ‘moral universe,’ which can be more unforgiving toward 1940s America than the surface froth suggests. . . The author deserves admiration for taking Sturges’s comedy seriously. Wall Street Journal

A perceptive, exceptionally well-composed and earnest evaluation. Film International

[An] incisive, compelling, and spirited analysis of the screwball maestro’s life and oeuvre. The Arts Fuse

The book is both a compelling biography of Sturges and a close read of his films, and Klawans writes with great wit and insight. The Film Stage

An invaluable, in-depth examination of the style and substance of 10 of Sturges' finest films. Pop Culture Classics

Crooked, but Never Common brings new perspective to old movies that are in many minds better remembered for their motley assortments of expertly deployed character actors—among them William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn, Jimmy Conlin, and Eugene Pallette—than for their depth and magnificent construction. Air Mail

A well-argued read for Sturges connoisseurs. Total Film

A fine book by one of the best critics in the country. Antonio Monda, La Repubblica

[Klawans's] prose positively sizzles at every turn, in what is sure to be a defining study of Sturges’s films. Times Literary Supplement

Klawans is a virtuoso writer and a savvy political thinker . . . Sturges's personal dilemmas flicker within an entertainment that becomes even more complex and stylish when we detect their traces. Cineaste

Klawans offers fresh analyses of Sturges’s movies, an impressive accomplishment considering how much has already been written about them. . . [He] thinks through Sturges’s work with love and careful attention. New York Review of Books