Release Date: July 14, 2020
Prices and Links:
Criterion- $27.96
Amazon- $39.95
Director: Preston Sturges
Writers: Preston Sturges, Monckton Hoffe
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette, William Demarest
Barbara Stanwyck sizzles, Henry Fonda bumbles, and Preston Sturges runs riot in one of the all-time great screwballs, a pitch-perfect blend of comic zing and swoonworthy romance. Aboard a cruise liner sailing up the coast of South America, Stanwyck’s conniving card sharp sets her sights on Fonda’s nerdy snake researcher, who happens to be the heir to a brewery fortune. But when the con artist falls for her mark, her grift becomes a game of hearts—and she is determined to win it all. One in a string of matchless comedic marvels that Sturges wrote, directed, and produced as part of a dazzling 1940s run, this gender-flipped battle-of-wits farce is perhaps his most emotionally satisfying work, tempering its sparkling wit with a streak of tender poignancy supplied by the sensational Stanwyck at her peak.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Prices and Links:
Criterion- $27.96
Amazon- $39.95
Director: Preston Sturges
Writers: Preston Sturges, Monckton Hoffe
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette, William Demarest
- United States
- 1941
- 93 minutes
- Black & White
- 1.37:1
- English
Barbara Stanwyck sizzles, Henry Fonda bumbles, and Preston Sturges runs riot in one of the all-time great screwballs, a pitch-perfect blend of comic zing and swoonworthy romance. Aboard a cruise liner sailing up the coast of South America, Stanwyck’s conniving card sharp sets her sights on Fonda’s nerdy snake researcher, who happens to be the heir to a brewery fortune. But when the con artist falls for her mark, her grift becomes a game of hearts—and she is determined to win it all. One in a string of matchless comedic marvels that Sturges wrote, directed, and produced as part of a dazzling 1940s run, this gender-flipped battle-of-wits farce is perhaps his most emotionally satisfying work, tempering its sparkling wit with a streak of tender poignancy supplied by the sensational Stanwyck at her peak.
SPECIAL FEATURES
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Audio commentary from 2001 featuring film professor Marian Keane
- Introduction from 2001 by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich
- Interview from 2020 with writer-director Preston Sturges’s biographer and son Tom Sturges and friends
- New video essay by film critic David Cairns
- Costume designs by Edith Head
- Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film from 1942 featuring Barbara Stanwyck and Ray Milland
- Audio recording of “Up the Amazon,” a song from an unproduced stage musical based on the film
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien and a 1946 profile of Preston Sturges from LIFE magazine
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