The Palm Beach Story

An essay by film historian John DiLeo about the film The Palm Beach Story (1942) directed by Preston Sturges and starring Joel McCrea, Claudette Colbert and Rudy Vallee. Excerpted from John DiLeo’s Screen Savers II: My Grab Bag of Classic Movies, “The Palm Beach Story (1942): The Deadpan Among the Zanies.” The Palm Beach Story, a flat-out screwball comedy, is a companion piece to Sturges’ classic The Lady Eve (1941) in terms of combining sex and slapstick, and cynicism and romance into a gleeful package.