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Preston Sturges: The Prince of Paramount
Taught by Ian Abrams, Associate Professor, College of Media Arts & Design, Drexel University


In a dizzying four years, Preston Sturges reinvented American film comedy. With seven landmark films, his mix of wordplay and slapstick created a school of movie-making that was wildly funny and distinctively American— a sophisticated take on the screwball cycle: fast and smart and
never too dignified for pratfalls.Sturges was the first prominent writer-director in Hollywood history, paving the way for his Paramount Pictures colleague, Billy Wilder, among others.

In this course, we will discuss the process by which Sturges the writer became Sturges the director, and what his films, which include The Lady Eve and Sullivan’s Travels, say about their times and the American character. We will also see how he achieved his comic effects, and how, in an era of strict censorship, Sturges managed to creatively and amusingly evade the period's reigning Production Code to deal with some very adult themes.

To see a trailer for this course, click here.