What do you think?
Rate this book
Four More Screenplays: The Palm Beach Story / The Miracle of Morgan's Creek / Unfaithfully Yours / The Great Moment
Includes The Palm Beach Story , Triumph over Pain/The Great Moment , The Miracle at Morgan's Creek , and Unfaithfully Yours .
Humorous, sophisticated, and superbly crafted, the cinema of Preston Sturges maintains an enduring presence in the small canon of films that enjoy critical acclaim, scholarly attention, and popular admiration. Following the enthusiastic reception of Five Screenplays by Preston Sturges , the University of California Press returns with Four More .
This volume contains three scripts widely regarded as among the filmmaker's The Palm Beach Story , The Miracle of Morgan's Creek , and Unfaithfully Yours . Based on the actual shooting scripts rather than the final screen versions, these screenplays contain scenes that were not filmed or that disappeared on the cutting room floor.
In the fourth script, Triumph over Pain/The Great Moment , Sturges dramatizes the career of W.T.G. Morton, the doctor who first demonstrated the use of ether and thus revolutionized surgery. Arguably the most important biographical film project of the 1940s, this film was recut and rearranged by Paramount before it was released. By reprinting Sturges's original script and explaining its transformation, Brian Henderson has, in effect, discovered a new work by Sturges.
In the introductions that precede each screenplay, Henderson examines every important aspect of the screenplay's composition. He analyzes Sturges's process of constant revision, discusses variant drafts and fragments of drafts, and describes the writer/director's relations with Paramount executives, the Church, the Hayes Office, and Darryl Zanuck.
Alone or as a companion to the earlier volume, this work will be welcomed by scholars, film buffs, screenplay writers, and admirers of Preston Sturges.
Humorous, sophisticated, and superbly crafted, the cinema of Preston Sturges maintains an enduring presence in the small canon of films that enjoy critical acclaim, scholarly attention, and popular admiration. Following the enthusiastic reception of Five Screenplays by Preston Sturges , the University of California Press returns with Four More .
This volume contains three scripts widely regarded as among the filmmaker's The Palm Beach Story , The Miracle of Morgan's Creek , and Unfaithfully Yours . Based on the actual shooting scripts rather than the final screen versions, these screenplays contain scenes that were not filmed or that disappeared on the cutting room floor.
In the fourth script, Triumph over Pain/The Great Moment , Sturges dramatizes the career of W.T.G. Morton, the doctor who first demonstrated the use of ether and thus revolutionized surgery. Arguably the most important biographical film project of the 1940s, this film was recut and rearranged by Paramount before it was released. By reprinting Sturges's original script and explaining its transformation, Brian Henderson has, in effect, discovered a new work by Sturges.
In the introductions that precede each screenplay, Henderson examines every important aspect of the screenplay's composition. He analyzes Sturges's process of constant revision, discusses variant drafts and fragments of drafts, and describes the writer/director's relations with Paramount executives, the Church, the Hayes Office, and Darryl Zanuck.
Alone or as a companion to the earlier volume, this work will be welcomed by scholars, film buffs, screenplay writers, and admirers of Preston Sturges.
983 pages, Paperback
First published December 24, 1994
1 person is currently reading
40 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 19, 2007
The second volume, in a hopefully ongoing appraisal of this great man's work, is just as essential as the first. Sturges was the first to earn the credit "Written and Directed by." This is a lobster dinner compared to the fast food of our current cinema.
Displaying 1 of 1 review