Preston Sturges and "French" phones

A friend of mine and I have been investigating when the use of the French phone became widespread in North America. In the so-called "French" phone, the earpiece and mouthpiece are in one unit, unlike the older phone, in which the receiver was a bell-like piece that was held to the ear, while the mouthpiece was separate--either mounted to the wall or on a column connected to the dial.

A nice DVD set that recently came out is Preston Sturges: The Filmmaker Collection, which contains seven of his best comedies (all except the wonderful Miracle of Morgan's Creek, in which William Demarest plays Officer Kockenlocker and Betty Hutton his daughter, who is impregnated by a soldier leaving for the war whose name she can only remember as Ignatz Ratzkywatzky--because of the Production Code, she claims she got married at a justice of the peace, but cannot remember where, not because she was drunk, but had hit her head on a mirror ball while being vigorously elevated during some boogie-woogie). Because of its time period, this set seemed a perfect sample in which to investigate the extent to which French phones had become a part of American life.

The Great McGinty (1940). Brian Donlevy plays a bum who is gradually elevated to political high office by a crooked boss, but he becomes honest, all through--I can see you've guessed it--the love of a woman. Better than it sounds. Supposedly Sturges, a Paramount scriptwriter, offered the script for $1 if Paramount would let him direct it too. Phones: almost all two-piece, particularly in the boss's office. However, that scene is a flashback.

Christmas in July (1940). Dick Powell thinks he has won a slogan contest, but he really hasn't--some fellow workers decide to fool him. A satire on advertising, American business, and creativity. Contains ALL French phones, including the office of the coffee company for which Powell works as a comptometer operator in a warren of desks, each of which has its own French phone.

The Lady Eve (1941). Henry Fonda plays a beer-company heir who meets a father-and-daughter team of cardsharps (Charles Coburn and Claudette Colbert) on a ship; after he spurns her, she gets her revenge on him: much, much better than the plot summary indicates--as are all these films. No phones on ship, but back at Fonda's estate, all are French phones. Could be the result of the upper class being represented. Maybe.

Sullivan's Travels (1941). Sturges's masterpiece. Joel McCrea plays John L. Sullivan, a Hollywood director of comedies, who wants to make a socially relevant movie about the poor, etc., based on the mythical bestseller O Brother, Where Art Thou (a later shot of the dust jacket shows it was written by famous author "Sinclair Bechstein"). Sully goes a-tramping, and all the phones--even the radio phone in the "land yacht" (read RV camper) that follows him around--are French phones, EXCEPT the pay phone in the morgue.

The Palm Beach Story (1942). Inventor Joel McCrea's failures cause his wife Claudette Colbert to leave him and marry a rich man so her new husband will support his invention. (Unfortunately, his most recent idea is an airport suspended in the middle of a large city--some Sturges scholar must have commented by now on what this makes viewers feel like after 9/11.) Colbert goes to Palm Beach, city of easy divorces, and meets Rudy Vallee, who plays John D. Hackensacker (read Rockefeller) III, The Erl King. This movie has one of the most elaborate hanging clauses I've ever seen. (A hanging clause is something that is mentioned or shown early on in a movie, its significance only explained much later.) Only a couple of phones, both at the beginning, and even though that scene takes place in 1937, they are French phones--but it is supposed to be a ritzy area (the couple lives on Park Avenue).

The Great Moment (1942). The story of the invention of anesthesia, the picture takes place during the mid-nineteenth century, so no phones at all. Probably contains the first seeds of Sturges's creative downfall, but those were hidden by the magnificent

Hail the Conquering Hero (1943). Eddie Bracken plays Woodrow Truesmith, son of a WWI Marine hero, who is discharged from the Marines after one month for hay fever. Six Marines whom he meets convince him to go home and pretend he was not discharged, with predictable--and unpredicatble--complications. A neglected masterpiece, with wonderful performances from the Sturges stock company, particularly William Demarest; perfectly pitched dialogue, in terms of characterization and class; little touches that show Sturges was a superb visual director; and every bit of its sentimentalism earned. Phones: French in the mayor's office, but wall-mounted speakers with bell-receivers in the pay phones and in the lower-middle-class Truesmith home.

So--what's the verdict on phones? I'm leaning to the conclusion that the use of the French phone is a function of class in these Paramount movies, but not convinced. At any rate, I have plenty of other collections to investigate from the same period, although perhaps the Tarzan collection is not going to help out much--except for Tarzan in Manhattan, perhaps.

The verdict on Sturges: a great director who shows his mastery in scenes like one from Hail, The Conquering Hero in which Ella Raines and her fiance talk about their proposed marriage while walking three or four blocks in a single sustained tracking shot, hitting their marks perfectly (as do the citizens around them) in a variety of lighting conditions, while delivering their lines faultlessly and believably. Sturges is also that rare director of the period who can depict characters expressing physical desire for each other both verbally and physically within the constraints of the Production Code (Fonda and Stanwyck, McCrea and Colbert).

Too bad that for Sturges, as with other American geniuses, there were no third and fourth acts.