July Journeys: The Palm Beach Story (1942)

This month we take a vacation with movies featuring characters doing the same.

RODNEY BOWCOCK: The Palm Beach Story is essentially the story of Tom (Joel McCrea) and Gerry Jeffers (Claudette Colebert). Tom is a struggling inventor, whose latest idea is an airport suspended above a city. He’s sunk their life savings into this venture and as such, they’re broke, owing money to everyone for every service that you need to live. Gerry has a knack for using her beauty to get what she needs to get by. The couple gets involved with a zany brother and sister team of aristocrats, John D. Hackensack III (Rudy Vallee) and his sister Maud (Mary Astor) while pretending that they aren’t married. See, Gerry thinks that she’s weighing Tom down and has been pressuring him for a divorce, hoping that they can pair together again once he makes a success of himself. The siblings find themselves smitten with Tom and Gerry and antics ensue as Gerry tries to wrangle money out of them and Tom tries to avert the suggestive advances of Maud. These are just the main wacky people that we encounter in this film. And believe me, we’re going to use the word “wacky” a lot in this review.

SAMANTHA GLASSER: The Palm Beach Story is what happens when you create wacky main characters and then some secondary wacky characters and let them bump into each other. Astor's character seems to be the only one who acknowledges her eccentricity, and revels in it. My favorite of the nutjobs is the hard-of-hearing weenie king with the fat bankroll (Robert Dudley). The scenes with the Ale and Quail club were less fun, like a drunken, debauched version of the elderly gentlemen in Ball of Fire. They even sing "Sweet Adeline."

RB: Robert Dudley, from Cincinnati, is only in the film for two scenes, but he steals them both, which is difficult to do when you’re working with Claudette Colbert. He’s a delight. A dentist turned actor, Dudley appeared in over 130 films, often uncredited, and passed away in 1955 at the age of 86. Clearly the sort of actor that we herald here at the Picture Show. The Ale and Quail club scenes were obnoxious, but it showed how easily Gerry is able to use her beauty to endear herself to men who simply want to spend time with her.

The homely virtues are so hard to find these days. A woman who can sew and cook, bake even if she doesn't have to... that is a woman.

SG: The film was shot in November and cost nearly $1 million due to the stars' salaries and the expensive sets. It premiered in the summer of 1942 in London, comic relief for people in the throes of WWII, and in America in December.

American Cinematographer noted, "Victor Milner is at his best in photographing a polished comedy-drama like this one — and in this one he has turned out one of the most polished jobs of decorative high-key photography we’ve seen come from his camera in some time. It’s more than a little reminiscent of the long succession of Lubitsch bedroom farce-comedies that flowed so delightfully from the Milner camera."

RB: Yes, it’s difficult not to see some Lubitsch influence here, or in any other screwball comedy. The cinematography is very good. Colbert especially is photographed beautifully.

SG: Rudy Vallee was cast after director Preston Sturges arrived too early at the theater for the film he intended to see, so he watched Time Out For Rhythm and was impressed by how many laughs he got with his dry delivery. Vallee said, "At the time it was as off-beat an idea in casting as the industry had ever seen. It was as if you were to re-do a Chaplin picture with Marlon Brando in baggy pants and derby." (This is he said in 1962, five years before Countess From Hong Kong.) Film Bulletin said, "The revelation of the cast is Rudy Vallee whose portrayal of the shy young millionaire with pince-nez glasses is a quietly-humorous characterization which deserves high praise." They were less impressed with McCrea's flat straight-man portrayal.

RB: Rudy Vallee is an interesting person to me. He was not a funny person, but he had funny delivery and didn’t know it. I have some rehearsal recordings of his radio program, and he frankly comes off as quite a bit of an ass. He’s one of those people who discovered so many funny people, and he is funny in this, but I still question if he ever understood what was funny in the first place.

SG: Yes, I've heard unflattering things about his inflated ego and the way he sometimes treated people. I've heard a lot of cracks about his singing ability too, though he undoubtedly had the right mix of vocal ability, charm and timing to become a major star in the 20s and 30s who then made the right career moves to extend his career into the following decades.

"Claudette is at her best in a part made for her. Sturges follows up his previous hits with a thoroughly delightful story that will make you forget the war," wrote Hollywood magazine. "The Palm Beach Story sets out to solve no world problems, but does succeed in giving the customers an evening of pure, undiluted fun."

Motion Picture Daily said, "A sparkling comedy with Claudette Colbert and Joel McCrea as the principals, The Palm Beach Story is a sure-fire box-office success for exhibitors who have done well with sophisticated comedy films."

A. C. Edwards at the Winema Theatre in Scotia, California said, "There was some real laughs in this picture and Miss Colbert was by no means a drawback. McCrea, however, drew no bouquets from the audience, which was not very large." Charles A. Brooks of the Ritz Theatre in Marshfield, Missouri didn't recommend it for a small-town audience.

Modern Screen wrote, "Any resemblance between Palm Beach Story and Real Life is strictly coincidental. It makes about as much sense as double-talk, but it's twice as funny."

Screwball author Ed Sikov called it, "A nearly perfect film that gets better with repeated viewings." Criterion selected it for their collection in 2019. Among its fans are Jeopardy's Ken Jennings and author Megan Abbott.

RB: Today, this film is regarded as a high-watermark in cinema. The AFI listed it as #77 on their list of the 100 best comedies ever made. The BBC listed it at #75. I enjoyed the movie and I enjoyed a cast full of lovable character actors, like the aforementioned Robert Dudley and William Demarest. And, yes, even the wonderful Byron Foulger appears with two words. But I never laughed. I liked it. But I never laughed at the #77 best comedy ever made. I’m sure that says something about me, but I don’t know what. I’m not a humorless toad. Three stars for a movie that I think may have been a bit over-hyped before I got around to seeing it.

SG: I wanted more from this movie. The first time I saw it was around the same time as I saw Midnight, and I was unimpressed with them both, or at least my memory told me as much. I re-watched that film this year and was delighted by it, so I hoped my assessment would change for this title as well. It didn't. Colbert's character is too zany for me to root for her, and I feel sorry for the people around her who she preys upon. There are some fun moments, and opulence that we expect from A pictures of the era, but the wacky ending doesn't tie up the loose ends the way it should. In fact, it left me with more questions, and made the rest of the journey seem like a waste of time. Still, there are some fun moments, and it is always a pleasure to spend time with the cast members. Three stars.