About

Known credits:
58
Birthday:
1898-08-29
Place of birth:
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Website:
N/A

Preston Sturges

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Preston Sturges (29 August 1898 – 6 August 1959), originally Edmund Preston Biden, was a celebrated playwright, screenwriter and film director born in Chicago, Illinois. In 1941 he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film The Great McGinty.

Sturges took the screwball comedy format of the 1930s to another level, writing dialogue that, heard today, is often surprisingly naturalistic, mature, and ahead of its time, despite the farcical situations.

In recent years, film scholars such as Alessandro Pirolini have also argued that Sturges' cinema anticipated more experimental narratives by contemporary directors such as Joel and Ethan Coen, Robert Zemeckis, and Woody Allen, along with prolific The Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder: "Many of [Sturges'] movies and screenplays reveal a restless and impatient attempt to escape codified rules and narrative schemata, and to push the mechanisms and conventions of their genre to the extent of unveiling them to the spectator. [See for example] the disruption of standardized timelines in films such as The Power and the Glory and The Great McGinty [or the way] an apparently classical comedy such as Unfaithfully Yours (1948) shifts into the realm of multiple and hypothetical narratives.

Prior to Sturges, other figures in Hollywood (such as Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, and Frank Capra) had directed films from their own scripts. However, Sturges is often regarded as the first Hollywood figure to be initially mainly successfully established as a screenwriter and then to subsequently move into directing his own scripts, at a time when those roles were mostly entrenched and separate. Famously, Sturges sold the story for The Great McGinty to Paramount Pictures for $1, in return for being allowed to direct the film; the sum was quietly raised to $10 by the studio for legal reasons.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Preston Sturges, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known for

Acting
1990 Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer Actor (archive) 59
Average
1958 Paris Holiday Actor Serge Vitry 58
Average
1942 Star Spangled Rhythm Actor Preston Sturges 59
Average
1940 Christmas in July Actor Man at Shoeshine Stand (uncredited) 60
Fair

Directing
1955 The French, They Are a Funny Race Directing Director 58
Average
1949 The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend Directing Director 58
Average
1948 Unfaithfully Yours Directing Director 61
Fair
1947 The Sin of Harold Diddlebock Directing Director 59
Average
1944 Hail the Conquering Hero Directing Director 60
Fair
1944 The Great Moment Directing Director 58
Average
1943 The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek Directing Director 60
Fair
1942 The Palm Beach Story Directing Director 61
Fair
1942 Safeguarding Military Information Directing Director 59
Average
1941 Sullivan's Travels Directing Director 66
Fair
1941 The Lady Eve Directing Director 64
Fair
1940 Christmas in July Directing Director 60
Fair
1940 The Great McGinty Directing Director 60
Fair

Writing
1984 Unfaithfully Yours Writing Original Film Writer 58
Average
1958 Rock-a-Bye Baby Writing Story 60
Fair
1956 The Birds and the Bees Writing Screenplay 59
Average
1955 The French, They Are a Funny Race Writing Writer 58
Average
1949 The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend Writing Writer 58
Average
1948 Unfaithfully Yours Writing Screenplay 61
Fair
1947 The Sin of Harold Diddlebock Writing Screenplay 59
Average
1947 I'll Be Yours Writing Writer 59
Average
1944 Hail the Conquering Hero Writing Writer 60
Fair
1944 The Great Moment Writing Screenplay 58
Average
1943 The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek Writing Writer 60
Fair
1942 The Palm Beach Story Writing Screenplay 61
Fair
1942 Safeguarding Military Information Writing Writer 59
Average
1941 Sullivan's Travels Writing Writer 66
Fair
1941 The Lady Eve Writing Screenplay 64
Fair
1940 Christmas in July Writing Writer 60
Fair
1940 The Great McGinty Writing Writer 60
Fair
1940 Remember the Night Writing Screenplay 61
Fair
1939 Never Say Die Writing Screenplay 59
Average
1938 If I Were King Writing Writer 59
Average
1938 Port of Seven Seas Writing Writer N/A
N/A
1938 College Swing Writing Screenplay 59
Average
1937 Easy Living Writing Screenplay 60
Fair
1937 Hotel Haywire Writing Writer N/A
N/A
1936 Love Before Breakfast Writing Writer 59
Average
1935 Diamond Jim Writing Writer 59
Average
1935 The Good Fairy Writing Screenplay 59
Average
1934 We Live Again Writing Adaptation 59
Average
1934 Thirty Day Princess Writing Screenplay 59
Average
1934 Twentieth Century Writing Writer 60
Fair
1933 The Invisible Man Writing Writer 68
Fair
1933 The Power and the Glory Writing Screenplay 59
Average
1933 Child of Manhattan Writing Theatre Play 59
Average
1933 They Just Had to Get Married Writing Writer N/A
N/A
1931 Strictly Dishonorable Writing Theatre Play 58
Average
1930 The Big Pond Writing Dialogue 59
Average

Production
1949 The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend Production Producer 58
Average
1948 Unfaithfully Yours Production Producer 61
Fair
1947 The Sin of Harold Diddlebock Production Producer 59
Average
1943 The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek Production Producer 60
Fair
1942 I Married a Witch Production Producer 61
Fair