Written and Directed by Preston Sturges (2 Criterion DVD9s & 5 PAL DVD5s)

Posted By: mook45

Date: April 28, 2011

IMDb
TheDigitalFix
DVDBeaver (US edition)

One of the giants of American screen comedy receives due reward with this set featuring seven of his finest films. With their sparkling dialogue, ingenious situations and memorable one-liners complementing the physical comedy in the films, there is much to enjoy. The satire has lost none of its edge either.

The Lady Eve (1941, 93 mins) [The Criterion Collection #103]

IMDb
Criterion page
DVDBeaver

A conniving father and daughter meet up with the heir to a brewery fortune—a wealthy but naïve snake enthusiast—and attempt to bamboozle him at a cruise ship card table. Their plan is quickly abandoned when the daughter falls in love with their prey. But when the heir gets wise to her gold-digging ways, she must plot to re-conquer his heart. One of Sturges’s most clever and beloved romantic comedies, The Lady Eve balances broad slapstick and sophisticated sexiness with perfect grace.

Disc Features:
* Sparkling new digital transfer
* Audio commentary by noted film scholar Marian Keane
* Video introduction by writer-director Peter Bogdanovich
* The 1942 broadcast of the Lux Radio Theatre adaptation, performed by Barbara Stanwyck and Ray Milland
* Edith Head costume designs
* Scrapbook of original publicity materials and production stills
* Original theatrical trailer
* English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired
* Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

Sullivan's Travels (1941, 90 mins) [The Criterion Collection #118]

IMDb
Criterion page
DVDBeaver

This masterpiece by Preston Sturges is perhaps the finest movie-about-a-movie ever made. Hollywood director Joel McCrea, tired of churning out lightweight comedies, decides to make O Brother, Where Art Thou—a serious, socially responsible film about human suffering. After his producers point out that he knows nothing of hardship, he hits the road as a hobo. He finds the lovely Veronica Lake—and more trouble than he ever dreamed of.

Disc Features:
* New digital transfer
* Audio commentary by Noah Baumbach, Kenneth Bowser, Christopher Guest, and Michael McKean
* Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer, a 76-minute documentary made by Kenneth Bowser for PBS’s American Masters series
* Interview with Preston Sturges’s widow Sandy Sturges
* Hedda Hopper interview with Preston Sturges
* Archival audio recordings of Sturges singing his original composition “My Love” and reciting the poem “If I Were King”
* Storyboards and blueprints
* Production stills archive
* Scrapbook of original publicity materials
* Original theatrical trailer
* English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired
* Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

The Criterion edition of Sturges' Unfaithfully Yours is here

The Great McGinty (1940, 78 mins)

IMDb

Told in flashback, Depression-era bum Dan McGinty is recruited by the city's political machine to help with vote fraud. His great aptitude for this brings rapid promotion from "the boss," who finally decides he'd be ideal as a new, nominally "reform" mayor; but this candidacy requires marriage. His in-name-only marriage to honest Catherine proves the beginning of the end for dishonest Dan…

Christmas in July (1940, 64 mins)

IMDb

An office clerk loves entering contests in the hopes of someday winning a fortune and marrying the girl he loves. His latest attempt is the Maxford House Coffee Slogan Contest. As a joke, some of his co-workers put together a fake telegram which says that he won the $25,000 grand prize. As a result, he gets a promotion, buys presents for all of his family and friends, and proposes to his girl. When the truth comes out, he's not prepared for the consequences.

The Palm Beach Story (1942, 83 mins)

IMDb

Gerry and Tom Jeffers are finding married life hard. Tom is an inventor/ architect and there is little money for them to live on. They are about to be thrown out of their apartment when Gerry meets rich businessman being shown around as a prospective tenant. He gives Gerry $700 to start life afresh but Tom refuses to believe her story and they quarrel. Gerry decides the marriage is over and heads to Palm Beach for a quick divorce but Tom has plans to stop her.

Hail the Conquering Hero (1944, 96 mins)

IMDb

Having been discharged from the Marines for a hayfever condition before ever seeing action, Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (Eddie Bracken) delays the return to his hometown, feeling that he is a failure. While in a moment of melancholy, he meets up with a group of Marines who befriend him and encourage him to return home to his mother by fabricating a story that he was wounded in battle with honorable discharge. They make him wear a uniform complete with medals and is pushed by his new friends into accepting a Hero's welcome when he gets home where he is to be immortalized by a statue that he doesn't want, has songs written about his heroic battle stories, and ends up unwillingly running for mayor. Despite his best efforts to explain the truth, no one will listen.

The Great Moment (1944, 77 mins)

IMDb

In the winter of 1868, Eben Frost (William Demarest) goes to a Boston pawnshop and redeems a silver medal, inscribed to "Dr. W.T.G. Morton, the Benefactor of Mankind, with the Gratitude of Humanity." Frost drives to a country farmhouse and gives the medal to Morton's widow, Elizabeth Morton (Betty Field) who explains to her daughter, Betty (Donivee Lee), that Frost was the first person given anesthesia by her father, Boston dentist Dr. W.T.G. Morton (Joel McCrea.) The story flashes back 20 years to find Morton being wildly acclaimed by medical students as the man whose discovery of "letheon" had forever ended pain as, before that day, even amputations were performed with the patient fully conscious. "Letheron", unknown to everybody but Morton and Elizabeth, is simply highly rectified sulphuric ether - cleaning fluid - easily obtainable at a pharmacy. By keeping the secret, Dr. Morton could be rich, but he had rather be poor than see a girl strapped to an operating table under the knife of Dr. Warren (Harry Carey), and he reveals his secret to a group of surgeons in the hospital operating theatre. With his secret out, and all hope of personal reward gone, with the possible exception of proceeds from his glass inhaler, he gets the news that Congress has voted him a reward of $100,000, and also learns that the patent on his inhaler has been infringed. President Pierce, under pressure from newspapers inflamed by jealous medical rivals of Morton, refuses to sign the bill until Morton has proven patient infringement.

Download full movie Written and Directed by Preston Sturges (2 Criterion DVD9s & 5 PAL DVD5s)

DOWNLOAD FROM USENET - 14 DAYS FREE ACCESS

Subtitles (from opensubtitles.org)