Preston Sturges

It does not exist.

It was originally the Players Club, uh, Preston Sturges, uh, building back in 1935.

Great director.

The...

In terms of width of the spectrum, I really love golden era Hollywood films.

I'm a Sturgis fan and a Ludwig fan, a Wilder fan.

But also, I really love independent films and super low-budget films.

So for me, I like the idea that I could do a studio film, but also I could do a film like Grandma, which I made for $600,000, which was a really super bare-bones film.

And I like that kind of stuff, especially for comedies.

And so there's these great old Preston Sturges movies where you look at it and it's like the dialogue is just flying.

Or even the, I think the fastest, the record for the most amount of dialogue in the shortest amount of time, I think, don't quote me on this because I could be wrong at this point, but the Philadelphia story.

Oh, really?

I like

Ernst Lubitsch movies.

I love Preston Sturges movies.

I love all those older...

[laughs]

Talk more and faster, like if you see all those old Preston Sturges movies or, um, or I'm trying to think of a contemporary one, but, um, you saw in my movies there's a lot of dialogue, and it's very rat-a-tat and, uh, fast.

And I hadn't sort of seen that or those things in a, in a graphic novel, but I might be wrong.

I just haven't read them.

so aft- after completing Singles, Crowe said he wanted to make a different type of movie, one that reminded you of the black and white movies you'd see on television late at night that you'd just turn on and be there.

He said he started binging classic films, watching character-driven movies from directors like Ernst Lubitsch, Preston Sturges, Howard Hawks, William Wyler, Jean Reno, and François Truffaut, but the most important filmmaker of them all was Billy Wilder.

Crowe talked about how much he loved Wilder's films, and he said that Wilder had one for every mood.

And while he loved all of them, his favorite Wilder film was The Apartment.

What it did not yet know was whether Veronica Lake could carry a real part.

Preston Sturges thought she could.

Sturges was one of the most powerful writer-directors in Hollywood.

His last three films, The Great McGinty, Christmas in July, and The Lady Eve, had made him Paramount's golden boy.

Instead, she falls in love with him.

Filming, which had taken place that April and May, had not been easy.

Preston Sturges, who had directed Lake in Sullivan's Travels, had originally been attached as the film's producer.

He was the one who convinced Clair that Lake could play Jennifer.

I mean, it really is.

I mean, it's like a Preston Sturges movie.

It's, it's, it's-

It's definitely

And that's a powerful idea, even in the best of times, but especially when people are struggling with the fact, and I think I mentioned this in the piece, one of my favorite movies is Sullivan's Travels, which is...

Preston Sturges movie from 41, I want to say, um, that where the lesson is that people don't want to be reminded of difficult times when they're living through them.

And when you're living through a difficult time, you savor.

And I think that, you know, not that they're completely analogous, but I think that people don't necessarily want a lot of stories right now about the pandemic.