1. For paying customers only, but this @lionel_trolling post raises one of my pet theories, that Preston Sturges was a conflicted Keynesian. johnganz.substack.com/p/reading-watc…
2. The key biographical fact about Sturges, the explanation for his extraordinary ability to capture the comedy of clashing classes, was that he was an economic yo-yo, going from riches to rags to riches to rags etc.
3. Sturges' dad was a stolid stockbroker, his mom a bohemian arty type (& gal pal of Isadora Duncan). So Sturges had a twin inheritance of 19th century stern austerity and modernist expressiveness, which played out in his work
4. One of Sturges' mother-in-laws (he was much married) owned Mar-A-Lago. So the world of the idle rich & rentier class was familiar to him. But he more than once lost a fortune & knew what it was like to have to pawn everything.
5. Having been rich & poor more than once, Sturges knew the value of just giving people money, of letting the printing press go brrr as the kids say nowadays. But the stern conscience of his dad was always there as Jiminy Cricket warning him this would undo society
6. The tension plays out in a lot of Sturges movies. The working stiff wins a lottery in Christmas in July & makes everyone happy but it turns out to be a fraud. The Boss in The Great McGinty spreads the wealth but is a crook.
https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/1175789840492875783
7. The conventions of romantic comedy -- where the main couples are often economically mismatched as in Lady Eve and Palm Beach Story -- are particularly useful for exploring mixed feelings about sharing the wealth.
8. In his bones, Sturges knew that society could be re-organized to be more productive, equitable, and happy. But he also knew that meant the rentier world of his father would have to be reined in. Hence the productive tension & sweet melancholy of his work.
9. More broadly, a lot of screwball romances of the comedy of remarriage sort are about reordering society. What's wrong with this relationship/marriage is what is wrong with the world.
https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/327103442894065666
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