- The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
Today at 11:30 AM, the Music Box screens Unfaithfully Yours, a late film by the great satirist Preston Sturges. It isn’t among my favorite of his films—what Dave Kehr calls a “[move] toward a more Lubitschian elegance,” I’d describe as a softening of his sensibilities, though that’s in no way meant to disparage the great Ernst Lubitsch. Even with the film’s dark sensibilities, it lacks the bite of his best work, the unique brand of satire that’s simultaneously pessimistic and jocund. It’s also among his least lyrical efforts. His work is filled with what’s known as “studio poetry,” meaning his films tackled themes and subjects that brushed up against the moral rigors of Hays Code and came out imaginative, subversive, and allegorical.
- The Lady Eve (1941) Self-perception is Sturges’s most consistent narrative motif. His characters tend to project idealized images of themselves, usually in an effort to impress and intimidate friends, enemies, lovers, and everything in between. Here, the institution of marriage is depicted as a means to some sort of indefinable existential end. It’s maybe Sturges’s most serious-minded film (it’s certainly his least farcical, albeit quite funny), but it retains the cutting edge of his most incisive work.
