This movie is worth watching just for the chance to see how much of an influence Preston Sturges had on the comedies of the 40's and early 50's. Colbert plays Christopher Madden, on route to Hollywood to rewrite her bestseller as a Hollywood film. As in Palm Beach Story, Colbert ends up an a train without luggage or ticket, engaging in a bizarre class dialogue, this time with Marine John Wayne (who plays the comedy almost as well as Cary Grant, whom Colbert's character wants Wayne's character to replace...interestingly confusing in a film that mocks post-war propaganda and Hollywood). Marines and trains and propaganda -- anyone else love Hail the Conquering Hero?
Colbert's character has outlined a "progressive" post-WWII heroic future for the country which runs counter to everything she experiences in her cross-country journey (and Sullivan's Travels). This may be the first movie to deal with the post-war propaganda era, and it does it pretty well. Colbert's novel is itself a kind of propaganda: "Here is Tomorrow" (she's the progressive doppelganger of Ayn Rand). Interestingly, the movie's war of the sexes casts the ordinary women Madden meets, in the role of reactionaries, just where the establishment in the next decade wanted them to be.
Watch a couple Sturges flicks before you see this one. Smoke em if you've got em.
Colbert's character has outlined a "progressive" post-WWII heroic future for the country which runs counter to everything she experiences in her cross-country journey (and Sullivan's Travels). This may be the first movie to deal with the post-war propaganda era, and it does it pretty well. Colbert's novel is itself a kind of propaganda: "Here is Tomorrow" (she's the progressive doppelganger of Ayn Rand). Interestingly, the movie's war of the sexes casts the ordinary women Madden meets, in the role of reactionaries, just where the establishment in the next decade wanted them to be.
Watch a couple Sturges flicks before you see this one. Smoke em if you've got em.