The Palm Beach story 1942 - A delirious screwball romance

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IMDB rating: 7,9

Director: Preston Sturges
Main Cast: Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, Rudy Vallee

"The Palm Beach Story is yet another satirical gem from director Preston Sturges, who gives the story a cynical edge sharper than in other screwball comedies. In 1942, even as the Great Depression was giving way to the war-time economy of World War II, poking fun at the idle rich continued to be a popular comic motif. The film's title is less meaningful to current audiences than it was to moviegoers of the 1940s, when train travel was the most frequent way that people got between cities, and the wealthy of the eastern seaboard rode trains each winter to the warm shores of Palm Beach, Florida. The performances in The Palm Beach Story are uniformly strong, with such non-comic actors as Joel McCrea and Mary Astor showing the diversity of their talents. Claudette Colbert gives one of the best performances of her career, though it is often overshadowed by her work in It Happened One Night." - www.allmovie.com

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Three cornered moon 1933 - A slightly screwball tale of the Great Depression

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IMDB rating: 6,8

Director: Elliott Nugent
Main Cast: Claudette Colbert, Richard Arlen, Mary Boland, Wallace Ford, Lyda Roberti, Tom Brown, Joan Marsh

"The golden age of screwball comedy was brief but glorious, and exactly when it began and ended is a source of some debate. Three-Cornered Moon is often cited as the first real example of the genre, but whether screwball or not, it's a delightful and charming comedy that, at 77 minutes, knows better than to outstay its welcome. The script is literate and sophisticated, making comedic a situation that at the time would have been rather desperate. Claudette Colbert is winning as the relative center of calm and sanity in the storm of lunacy. Her soft, round face is a mask of sensibility covering both determination and exasperation. She holds her own against the scene-stealing efforts of Mary Boland, who creates a character whose obliviousness and ditziness could be irritating in less expert hands. Boland knows quite well how to deliver her laugh lines so they land exactly where they're supposed to, as well as how to clear them out to make room for the next one - while at the same time giving them a freshness to disguise the technique beneath it all. Altogether Moon is a bit too soft to be the kind of knockabout it wants to be, but it's a pleasing trifle nonetheless." - www.allmovie.com

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Honor among lovers 1931 - Displays of sexual harrasment in the workplace

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021969/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 6,8

Director: Dorothy Arzner
Main Cast: Claudette Colbert, Fredric March, Monroe Owsley, Charles Ruggles, Ginger Rogers, Pat O'Brien

"Trailblazing female director Dorothy Arzner helmed this well-crafted romantic drama.
Julia Traynor (Claudette Colbert) is a secretary working for Jerry Stafford (Frederic March), a successful stock broker. Jerry has taken a decidedly non-professional interest in Julia, and when he asks her to join him on an ocean cruise, she firmly declines the offer. Hoping to throw Jerry off her trail, Julia accepts a hasty marriage proposal from Philip Craig (Monroe Owsley), a young and struggling securities broker. When Jerry learns that Julia has tied the knot, he rashly fires her and predicts that the marriage won't last six months. Jerry soon regrets his outburst and not only gives Julia her job back but hires Philip as well. However, Jerry's prediction proves to be not far from the mark; Julia is not happy with Philip, and Jerry learns that Philip has been embezzling company funds to play the market on his own. After a downturn in the market wipes out Philip's investments, Julia discovers that he owes $100,000 as a result of his bad investments. Desperate to raise money, Julia offers herself to Jerry in exchange for a loan; he refuses to take advantage of her, but he agrees to front her the money anyway. Philip, however, cannot believe that Jerry would give Julia the money without demanding her favors in return, and he goes after Jerry in a jealous rage.
This was the second of four on screen pairings for Colbert and March. The following year they reunited for DeMille's Sign of the Cross and, a month after that, for Mitchell Leisen's Tonight Is Ours. It's part of Hollywood legend that Colbert didn't really enjoy these pairings, because March was notorious for getting a bit too 'familiar' with his leading ladies. Colbert reportedly disliked the man – there are stories of March wandering around 'in a daze' on the set of Sign of the Cross, he was so nuts about her.
Another ponderous example of Arzner's apparent disdain for men and marriage - either good men turn bad or bad men reform only through the love of a good woman. The film does contain a few, as Billy Wilder would say, drop the popcorn bag moments, to its credit; but overall, it's a dark, unimaginative story, painted with the very broad strokes and heavy hand of the director."

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Young man of Manhattan 1930 - "Cigarette me, big boy!"

Claudette Colbert & Norman Foster in Young Man of Manhattan (1930)

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021568/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 6,8

Director: Monta Bell
Main Cast: Claudette Colbert, Norman Foster, Ginger Rogers, Charles Ruggles

"Sometimes a film can be remembered for one thing. In the case of Young Man of Manhattan, it's not because of Ginger Rogers' feature debut (although that is certainly noteworthy). It's for Rogers' unforgettable line, 'Cigarette me, big boy', which became one of the most copied catch phrases of the era. While it's not an especially witty piece of dialogue, if the rest of Young Man's script had at least been at that level, it might have been a good movie. As it is, it's an adequate and fairly forgettable film, distinguished only by the very early presences of Rogers and star Claudette Colbert. Neither one gives a world-beating performance, but it's fun to see Rogers in her nascent wisecracking, flapper role and Colbert using her charm to carry her through some rough patches that she doesn't yet know how to navigate. Monta Bell's direction is sluggish and perfunctory, but he does take advantage of the sports setting of the film to include a number of interesting 'action' shots." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/young-man-of-manhattan-v118101/

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Drums along the Mohawk 1939 - Three-strip Technicolor in all its glory!

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031252/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 7,2

Director: John Ford
Main Cast: Henry Fonda, Claudette Colbert, Edna May Oliver, Eddie Collins, John Carradine

"The first of many collaborations between director John Ford and Henry Fonda, this fine, typically Fordian vision of community life also features the director's first use of the then recently developed Technicolor process. A visually appealing slice of Americana, the film places a youthful, yet stoic Fonda in a series of iconic poses as he and his new wife, an incongruously soigné Claudette Colbert struggle to maintain their farm during the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in the Indian-infested Mohawk Valley. As the farmers fight off Indian attacks, with the well-born Colbert learning to adapt to a difficult new environment, the director links self-sacrifice with heroism. As with much of Ford, the characters' behavior is concerned with the enactment of rituals and the display of pageantry, and the main characters, essentially types. He's more willing to allow the character actors, like Oscar-nominated Edna May Oliver, who plays a feisty widow, to indulge in some theatrics. Despite the hardships the farmers must endure, the film's bright look signals an optimism characteristic of the director during this period, perhaps addressing his Depression-era audience about the grit and cohesiveness required to survive in difficult times. 1939 was a stellar year for John Ford; along with this highly successful adventure tale, which was nominated for three Academy Awards, Ford also released the ground-breaking western Stagecoach." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/drums-along-the-mohawk-v14871/

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It happened one night 1934 - The movie which set the pace for screwball comedy

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025316/
IMDB rating: 8,3

Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly

"Frank Capra's seminal screwball comedy, which won all five major Academy Awards for 1934, is still as breezy and beguiling today. Scripted by Capra's frequent collaborator Robert Riskin, Frank Capra's It Happened One Night became the prototypical screwball comedy and elevated Columbia Pictures from Poverty Row status to respectable 'major minor' studio. Starring Clark Gable, on loan from MGM as punishment, and Claudette Colbert, on loan from Paramount for twice her usual pay, Capra's and Riskin's comic romance between a down-to-earth newspaper reporter and a spoiled runaway heiress set the standard for screwball. Its fast-paced repartee, kooky heroine, witty gags, and class-crossing love story became hallmarks of the genre in such later films as My Man Godfrey (1936) and Bringing Up Baby (1938); the overt lustiness barred by the 1934 Production Code was transmuted into clever banter and the romance conveyed an ideal Depression-era fantasy. A critical and commercial hit, It Happened One Night was the first film to sweep the top five Oscars, rewarding Capra, Riskin, Gable, and Colbert, and fulfilling Columbia impresario Harry Cohn's desire to turn his B-studio into a class act.
The only other movies to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay) were One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991)." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/it-happened-one-night-v25509

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