Crooked, but Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges, by Stuart Klawans. Columbia UP, 2023, 366 pp.

Has there ever been a director who burned brighter, and for a shorter period, than Preston Sturges? The first to utilise, and subsequently capitalise on, the “written and directed by” credit, Sturges was a wunderkind filmmaker—acidic in both his portrayal of politics and romance over the course of e...

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Main Author: Christian Gallichio
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University College Cork 2025-02-01
Series:Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media
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Online Access:https://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue28/HTML/ReviewGallichio.html
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author Christian Gallichio
author_facet Christian Gallichio
author_sort Christian Gallichio
collection DOAJ
description Has there ever been a director who burned brighter, and for a shorter period, than Preston Sturges? The first to utilise, and subsequently capitalise on, the “written and directed by” credit, Sturges was a wunderkind filmmaker—acidic in both his portrayal of politics and romance over the course of eight masterpieces in as many years. That his filmography actually consists of twelve features over fifteen years (not counting the twenty or so screenplays he had a hand in writing) is a central tension in Stuart Klawans’s deft and dutiful examination Crooked, but Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges. Here, the long-time Nation critic unpacks Sturges’s filmography with an eye towards “the trains of thought, ambiguities, and semicovert artistic impulses that emerge in his films on a second viewing, or a fifth”
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spelling doaj-art-38539fa0c395498fb1318cdce6ba29552025-08-20T02:45:05ZengUniversity College CorkAlphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media2009-40782025-02-0128110114https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.28.09Crooked, but Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges, by Stuart Klawans. Columbia UP, 2023, 366 pp.Christian Gallichio0Emory UniversityHas there ever been a director who burned brighter, and for a shorter period, than Preston Sturges? The first to utilise, and subsequently capitalise on, the “written and directed by” credit, Sturges was a wunderkind filmmaker—acidic in both his portrayal of politics and romance over the course of eight masterpieces in as many years. That his filmography actually consists of twelve features over fifteen years (not counting the twenty or so screenplays he had a hand in writing) is a central tension in Stuart Klawans’s deft and dutiful examination Crooked, but Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges. Here, the long-time Nation critic unpacks Sturges’s filmography with an eye towards “the trains of thought, ambiguities, and semicovert artistic impulses that emerge in his films on a second viewing, or a fifth”https://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue28/HTML/ReviewGallichio.htmlpreston sturgesrhetoricgenealogyorson welles
spellingShingle Christian Gallichio
Crooked, but Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges, by Stuart Klawans. Columbia UP, 2023, 366 pp.
Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media
preston sturges
rhetoric
genealogy
orson welles
title Crooked, but Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges, by Stuart Klawans. Columbia UP, 2023, 366 pp.
title_full Crooked, but Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges, by Stuart Klawans. Columbia UP, 2023, 366 pp.
title_fullStr Crooked, but Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges, by Stuart Klawans. Columbia UP, 2023, 366 pp.
title_full_unstemmed Crooked, but Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges, by Stuart Klawans. Columbia UP, 2023, 366 pp.
title_short Crooked, but Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges, by Stuart Klawans. Columbia UP, 2023, 366 pp.
title_sort crooked but never common the films of preston sturges by stuart klawans columbia up 2023 366 pp
topic preston sturges
rhetoric
genealogy
orson welles
url https://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue28/HTML/ReviewGallichio.html
work_keys_str_mv AT christiangallichio crookedbutnevercommonthefilmsofprestonsturgesbystuartklawanscolumbiaup2023366pp