The Palm Beach Story

Made by the brilliant writer/director of satirical comedy, Preston Sturges, The Palm Beach Story stars Claudette Colbert who, by the early 1940s, had become firmly established as Hollywood's queen of romantic comedy. Watching her antics and listening to her way with a witty line in the face of this film's ever-escalating absurdities, it's easy to see why. Teamed with Joel McCrea (star of Sturges's famed Sullivan's Travels), Colbert is the young wife who decides that her poverty-stricken husband would be better off without her. So she leaves for Florida to seek a divorce and a rich man. How she gets there, the consequences of her meeting with a prissy, eccentric bachelor billionaire (Rudy Vallee), and McCrea's response to the situation supply the action. It's worth sitting out some tedious early sequences to enjoy the delightful romp that follows.

Flighty comedy, inconsequential in itself, but decorated with scenes, characters and zany touches typical of its creator, here at his most brilliant if uncontrolled.