Preston Sturges Night
Preston Sturges Night — TV and movies are still trying to recreate the screwball mayhem unleashed 70 years ago by writer-director-producer auteur Preston Sturges. This Saturday, Turner Classic Movies shows us why, piling up six Sturges flicks, starting at 8 p.m. ET with his showbiz satire Sullivan's Travels (in which the Hollywood director played by Joel McCrea is hot to make a "message" movie called O Brother, Where Art Thou? -- yep, that's where the Coens got it). TCM's all-nighter of DVR must-sees also includes Sturges' political lampoon The Great McGinty (Saturday at 11 p.m. ET) and Barbara Stanwyck's card sharp bewitching flustered ale heir Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve (12:30 a.m. ET). The above clip from Sturges' frothy romcom The Palm Beach Story (Sunday at 4 a.m. ET, with McCrea and Claudette Colbert) clues you to Sturges' snowballing comic chaos, revved up before the opening credits are through. Watch the whole excerpt -- you gotta see The Weenie King! —DW