Dialogue by Preston Sturges

There is a kind of gentle, eccentric raucousness running through the best of Preston Sturges's movies, from The Great McGinty (1940), whose prologue we posted a while back, to a half dozen films that continue the charming, absurdist tone: The Lady Eve (1941), Sullivan's Travels (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1942), The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944), Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) and Unfaithfully Yours (1948). Here are a few snippets of dialogue from those films.

Jean Harrington (Barbara Stanwyck): I need him like the ax needs the turkey.
— The Lady Eve (1941)

Wienie King (Robert Dudley): Cold are the hands of time that creep along relentlessly, destroying slowly but without pity that which yesterday was young. Alone our memories resist this disintegration and grow more lovely with the passing years. Heh! That’s hard to say with false teeth!
— The Palm Beach Story (1942)

Sir Alfred De Carter (Rex Harrison): Have you ever heard of Russian Roulette?
Daphne De Carter (Linda Darnell): Why, certainly. I used to play it all the time with my father.
Sir Alfred De Carter: I doubt that you played Russian Roulette all the time with your father!
Daphne De Carter: Oh, I most certainly did. You play it with two decks of cards, and…
Sir Alfred De Carter: That’s Russian Bank. Russian Roulette’s a very different amusement which I can only wish your father had played continuously before he had you!
— Unfaithfully Yours (1948) 

The Girl (Veronica Lake): I liked you better as a bum.
John Lloyd Sullivan (Joel McCrea): I can’t help what kind of people you like.
— Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

Gerry Jeffers (Claudette Colbert): Don’t you know that the greatest men in the world have told lies and let things be misunderstood if it was useful to them? Didn’t you ever hear of a campaign promise?
— The Palm Beach Story (1942)

Constable Kockenlocker (William Demarest): The trouble with kids is they always figure they’re smarter than their parents. Never stop to think if their old man could get by for 50 years and feed ‘em and clothe ‘em, he maybe had something up here to get by with. Things that seem like brain twisters to you might be very simple for him.
— The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944)

Gerald (Melville Cooper): I can’t understand how the horse ran fifth!
Jean Harrington (Barbara Stanwyck): There were only five horses in the race. What do you expect when you bet on a goat called “After You?”
— The Lady Eve (1941)

[discussing a prior “serious” film]
Mr. LeBrand (Robert Warwick): It died in Pittsburgh.
Mr. Hadrian (Porter Hall): Like a dog!
John Lloyd Sullivan (Joel McCrea): Aw, what do they know in Pittsburgh…
Mr. Hadrian: They know what they like.
John Lloyd Sullivan: If they knew what they liked, they wouldn’t live in Pittsburgh.
— Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

Sergeant Heppelfinger (William Demarest): I guess you never got to know your father very well, eh?
Woodrow Truesmith (Eddie Bracken): Well, not exactly…as he fell the day I was born.
Sergeant Heppelfinger: That’s right. It’s hard to realize. He was a fine looking fellow. He didn’t look anything like you at all.
— Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)

Detective Sweeney (Edgar Kennedy): You handle Handel like nobody handles Handel. And your Delius—delirious!
— Unfaithfully Yours (1948)

J. D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee): That’s one of the tragedies of this life—that the men who are most in need of a beating up are always enormous.
— The Palm Beach Story (1942)

John Lloyd Sullivan (Joel McCrea): I want this picture to be a commentary on modern conditions. Stark realism. The problems that confront the average man!
Mr. LeBrand (Robert Warwick): But with a little sex in it.
John Lloyd Sullivan: A little, but I don’t want to stress it. I want this picture to be a document. I want to hold a mirror up to life. I want this to be a picture of dignity! A true canvas of the suffering of humanity!
Mr. LeBrand: But with a little sex in it.
John Lloyd Sullivan: [reluctantly] With a little sex in it.
— Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

August 29

Preston Sturges, director of The Great McGinty (1940), The Lady Eve (1941) and Sullivan’s Travels (1941), is born in Chicago, 1898. His golden rule for comedy: A pretty girl is better than a plain one, a leg is better than an arm, a bedroom is better than a living room, an arrival is better than a departure, a birth is better than death, a chase is better than a chat, a dog is better than a landscape, a kitten is better than a dog, a baby is better than a kitten, a kiss is better than a baby, a pratfall is better than anything.

August 19

"I intend to live forever, or die trying," Groucho Marx once said. The 86-year-old comedian dies of pneumonia in Los Angeles in 1977.

In 1939, Preston Sturges sells the script of The Great McGinty (1940) to Paramount with the proviso that he direct the picture. Paramount acquiesces and pays him the previously agreed-to price of $10. The screenplay goes onto win the Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay. It also happens to contain one of the best movie prologues of the era: "This is the story of two men who met in a banana republic. One of them never did anything dishonest in his life except for one crazy minute. The other never did anything honest in his life except for one crazy minute. They both had to get out of the country."