Posted on 03/29/2026 10:42:56 AM PDT by Twotone
In Preston Sturges' posthumous memoir Sturges by Sturges, finished by his widow Sandy and published in 1990, the director recounts an outlandish story from his childhood that would end up inspiring one of the most chaotic sequences in his 1942 screwball masterpiece The Palm Beach Story.
His mother, a socially and culturally ambitious woman who was friends with dancer Isadora Duncan and had an affair with satanist Aleister Crowley, had brought him to Dresden while she worked on an operetta and the two of them (plus maid) were heading back to Paris in a train compartment stuffed with masses of baggage, caged birds and a couple of dogs. They went to the dining car, leaving all their money and tickets in the stateroom, and ignored the announcement that while the train was now heading for Berlin the rear carriages – including their compartment – were being shunted off to head for Paris.
Sturges' mother, oblivious to all the activity, actually asked the red-capped conductor in charge of the announcement if he could get them a second serving of kartoffeln. By the time they finished dinner they were on the nonstop express to Berlin while everything else – tickets, money, baggage, dogs and birds – was on the way to Paris but could be unloaded in Cologne.
Unable to get their tickets to Paris refunded or buy new ones to Cologne, Mary Sturges threatened the recalcitrant officials with a call to "my friend, the Ab-Princess of Meiningen," which at least allowed them to leave the station and spend a night in "the cheesiest and cheapest hotel in the neighbourhood".
Ticketless, she bluffed her way on to the morning's first train to Cologne and presumed upon the generosity of "an amiable American gentleman" to buy lunch for her, Preston and the maid.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
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Uh!!
Mark sure likes to get in the weeds and esotorics... and of course quoting himself.
The Ale & Quail sequence is one of the funniest bits in film.
After a while the man asked me if I was English and I told him "no, I'm an American". He immediately glared at me and said "I don't like Americans - you took me prisoner in 1943 in North Africa". I said "well, we're nice people and we're quite likeable - you ought to come back and visit".
He paused for a moment and said "you made me harvest corn in Tennessee".
I said "it sure beat the Eastern Front, though". He grinned and we had a great time together for an hour or two - he even paid for breakfast.
Great story.
I love those old “screwball romantic comedies” of the ‘30s and ‘40s. The clever, rapid dialog doesn’t appeal to modern audiences, which is unfortunate.
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