“The Seven Wonders of Preston Sturges”

If there is one person to whom we can point as writing and selling the first feature length spec script, it’s Preston Sturges. The year was 1933 and the script was The Power and the Glory. Directed by William K. Howard, Sturges received a credit of “Original Screenplay” for the film. Here is the first part of The Power and the Glory:

Not happy with what directors were doing to his dialogue and action, Sturges wrote the spec script The Great McGinty which he schlepped around Hollywood for seven years until he ended up selling it to Paramount for $10 in exchange for him being able to direct the film. Here are two scenes from The Great McGinty:

Sturges was the first screenwriter to become a writer-director and during a frenzied 5 year stretch, he wrote and directed seven notable movies: The Great McGinty, Christmas in July, The Lady Eve, Sullivan’s Travels, The Palm Beach Story, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek and Hail the Conquering Hero.

Sturges won the very first Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (for The Great McGiinty), was nominated for two screenwriting Oscars in 1944, and four of his films — The Lady Eve, Sullivan’s Travels, The Palm Beach Story and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek — were chosen by the American Film Institute as being among the 100 funniest American films.

Which is to say, Preston Sturges is an important figure in the history of American screenwriting, one you should know about.

Vanity Fair recently published an article: “The Seven Wonders of Preston Sturges,” good reading for anyone interested in the craft, Hollywood history, and Sturges himself. Go here for that feature.

I found an interview with Sturges’ widow which provides some great insight into his roots as a writer, the spec script The Power and the Glory, how he decided he would become a director, and much more:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nZKVW0-z7o