Volume 37, Number 20 · December 20, 1990
The Sturges Style
By Geoffrey O'Brien
Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges
adapted and edited by Sandy Sturges
Simon and Schuster, 352 pp., $22.95
Between Flops: A Biography of Preston Sturges
by James Curtis
Limelight, 339 pp., $9.95 (paper)
Madcap: The Life of Preston Sturges
by Donald Spoto
Little, Brown, 301 pp., $19.95
Five Screenplays by Preston Sturges
edited and with an introduction by Brian Henderson
University of California Press, 848 pp., $22.50 (paper)
Young and fashionable crowds spilling over into the street, turned away nightly after vain attempts to gain admission to The Lady Eve or Christmas in July: such was the unanticipated spectacle provided by a recent Preston Sturges retrospective at New York's Film Forum, which ended going into overtime in order to accommodate the eager hordes. Out in the lobby, alongside copies of the newly published memoir Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges, a collection of memorabilia testified to Sturges's success at shaping his own legend, from his invention of a kissproof lipstick to his elopement with the Hutton heiress (an escapade which made the front page of The New York Times). In each of the photos on display Sturges managed to turn himself into a perfectly judged comic icon, an amalgam of whimsical moustache and flamboyant headgear, the glittering eyes promising initiation into unimaginable realms of gnostic zaniness. It was a sweet triumph, however posthumous and belated: Sturges presented entirely on his own terms, enjoying the unconditional success he courted so energetically.
Review, 3716 words
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