Sunday, 25 December 2016

Palm Beach Story


Also Known As:
Unknown
Year:
1942
Country:
United States…
Predominant Genre:
Romance
Director:
Preston Sturges…
Best Performances:
Mary ASTOR… Claudette COLBERT… Rudy VALLÉE…
Premiss:
Inventor needs cash to develop his big idea, so his loving wife decides to raise it for him by divorcing him and marrying a millionaire.
Themes:
Personal change | Self-expression
Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:
Unknown
Review Format:
DVD

Absurdly-plotted comedy about the human absurdity of the relationship between money and sex.

Claudette COLBERT does well in a role that does not really fit her. She is ill-at-ease with slick, fast paced dialogue; preferring to use her cheekily-expressive face to get across the movie’s more censorable elements.

Rudy VALLÉE is brilliant as a mild-mannered millionaire who talks an awful lot of sense about life and business; taking his inherited wealth as it comes – as he does people. Mary ASTOR essays her usual sluttish characterization (based partly on herself) with unmistakable relish and well-meaning gusto. She is silly and superficial, but you cannot help laughing because she is so funny with it. And, as usual with director Preston Sturges, he foregrounds the women as a way of showing how weak and overblown the men are.

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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.