The Palm Beach Story
What’s your favorite comedy? What a question! The Palm Beach Story, though, stands firmly within the clutch of ten or so films that answer that question at any given time. Preston Sturges does things that nobody else ever thought of trying. Surely there has never been anything as grossly transgressive as the behavior of the Ale & Quail Club members in their bar car. And the way Geraldine keeps stepping on Hackensacker’s spectacles! Lots of “ouch” factor there. Just the same, there has never been a more seductive surrender scene than the one that Claudette Colbert and Joel McCrae deliver at the end.
Our favorite line:
“Don’t you think garnets are a little lifeless?”
Our second favorite line:
“You’re thinking of an adventurer, dear. An adventuress never goes on anything under three hundred feet – with a crew of eighty.”Â