Overview

The cinema of Preston Sturges maintains an enduring presence in the small canon of films that enjoy critical acclaim, scholarly attention, and popular admiration. Following the reception of ""Five Screenplays"" by Preston Sturges, this text provides ""Four More"". This volume contains three scripts widely regarded as among the film-maker's best: ""The Palm Beach Story"", ""The Miracle of Morgan's Creek"", and ""Unfaithfully Yours"". Based on the actual shooting scripts rather than the final screen versions, these screenplays contain scenes that were not filmed or that disappeared on the cutting room floor. In the fourth script, ""Triumph over Pain / The Great Moment"", Sturges dramatizes the career of W.T.G. Morgan, the doctor who first demonstrated the use of ether and thus revolutionized surgery. Arguably the most important biographical film project of the 1940s, this film was recut and rearranged by Paramount before it was released. By reprinting Sturges's original script and explaining its transformation, Brian Henderson has, in effect, discovered a new work by Sturges. In the introductions that precede each screenplay, Henderson examines every important aspect of the screenplay's composition. He analyzes Sturges's process of constant revision, discusses variant drafts and fragments of drafts, and describes the writer/director's relations with Paramount executives, the Church, the Hayes Office, and Darryl Zanuck. Alone or as a companion to the earlier volume, this work should be of interest to scholars, film buffs, screenplay writers, and admirers of Preston Sturges.

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9780520203655

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Reviews

"""Henderson's new book, which includes accounts of the genesis of each script, also indirectly vindicates Sturges's skills as a film director and film shaper: In less capable hands his risky comic ideas and mixing of slapstick with high comedy could have collapsed into a silly mess.""--Whit Stillman, ""Wall Street Journal"

Henderson's new book, which includes accounts of the genesis of each script, also indirectly vindicates Sturges's skills as a film director and film shaper: In less capable hands his risky comic ideas and mixing of slapstick with high comedy could have collapsed into a silly mess. --Whit Stillman, Wall Street Journal

Author Information

Preston Sturges (1898-1959) was a member of Hollywood's gifted royalty. He wrote, directed, and produced a remarkable number of successful films and wrote and produced for the Broadway stage. Brian Henderson is Professor of Film and Chair of the Department of Media Studies at the State University of New York, Buffalo. Tom Sturges, who conceived this series of books, is the general manager of Los Angeles-based T.W.Is.M. Records. He is working on a one-man play about the life of his father, Preston Sturges.

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