As the poll closed this morning with a clear advance by Preston Sturges we can now declare that the Summer of 2013 will be tainted with the films directed by Preston Sturges. There are fourteen titles found in his directorial credits and if time and availability are present there might be some films that he only was credited as a writer.
I’m not very surprised that Sturges took first place, but I would think that it would be a closer race. Preston Sturges is probably the most famous of the four names even if few people have seen more than his Sullivan’s Travels, The Lady Eve, and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek. Of the fourteen titles I have seen only two and those are Sullivan’s Travels and The Lady Eve. Funny enough, Sullivan’s Travels was one of my many picks for the 1001 Movie Club and it is the only film that I reviewed twice on LMdC. The first of the two reviews is one of my first English only movie reviews short and written after my first viewing of this masterpiece. The second one was for the aforementionned Club.
Along with Charlie Chaplin and Frank Capra, Preston Sturges was on of the few first directors who also wrote their own scripts. He even made himself a reputation of quality screenwriter before adding directing to his resume. Being an eccentric character didn’t helped him get financing to his films and even with a partnership with Howard Hugues he failed to accomplish full freedom of creation and was one of the most stigmatised directing careers of his time.
