Comments on: 934. Unfaithfully Yours (1948, Preston Sturges)

By: Joe Pilla

Joe Pilla — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 06:13:15 +0000

Truly enjoyed your take on UNFAITHFULLY YOURS, especially your affectionate consideration of the rehearsal scene.
I have no qualms ranking this film–a baffling flop–up there with Sturges’ more celebrated Paramount hits. While I relish Sir Alfred’s acid tongue (Harrison is wonderfully cast, but Clifton Webb might have been better.)and his wife’s oblivious carnality (Darnell so expertly embodies the part that even I want to strangle her.), to me the film’s special as one last vindication of Sturges’ famed stock company of beloved character actors, set in small speaking parts polished like gems.
There’s Torben Meyer gleefully smashing together the mammoth cymbals, Julius Tannen as the tailor whose lunch De Carter spoils, and Al Bridge as a hard-boiled dick nearly blistered by the jealous conductor.
Most memorable of all, tho’, is Edgar Kennedy ’s concert-loving “footpad,” who flummoxes De Carter with his unwashed ardor for the Maestro’s music, and whose wistful speech on the painful necessity of loving women certain to be unfaithful is one of my favorite Sturges segments.
For Kennedy–who stooged for Chaplin and Arbuckle at Keystone, slow-burned magnificently for Laurel and Hardy and Harpo Marx, and starred in a long-running and unjustly forgotten series of shorts at RKO–having Preston Sturges write such a scene just for him must have been sweet indeed. Perhaps the death of Kennedy soon after augured the imminent death of the cozy Studio system, (with its deep reserves of such character players) whereupon Sturges would lose his way
as well as the instruments of his singular talent.

By: Ryland Walker Knight

Ryland Walker Knight — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 01:32:54 +0000

Oh, your work is great, Kevin! Always impressive and extensive. Definitely worth considering. I just try to get away from that angle because I find it a limit to the art, not a means to explode it, if that makes sense. For instance, I'm more interested in how Sturges was even allowed to make such a dark film. Are men really that devious? Also, as a witness to the American experience, what might this say about how men act (and react) in America.

By: alsolikelife

alsolikelife — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 03:38:15 +0000

Thanks so much. As I think I let on somewhere, I’m not a huge fan of the film, though it has plenty of fascinations from an auteurist standpoint. I noticed on Ryland Walker Knight’s blog that he thinks I take the “psychobiographical” angle a bit too far, but I’m glad you found it worth considering.

By: Schuyler Chapman

Schuyler Chapman — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 01:06:16 +0000

Wow. You did a wonderful job writing about “Unfaithfully Yours”–it almost makes me like the movie. As much as I can appreciate the move from external to internal in the film, as well as the atypical (or rather, um, great) use of sound in the film, “Unfaithfully” has always felt a little flat to me. Something always seemed absent in it. The parallel you draw between Carter and Sturges helps explain the absence, perhaps, and, if not, certainly makes this film more poignant. Bearing that information in mind, it almost, as I said, makes me like it. Good job! (It’s not everyday a few hundred words can nearly change my opinion.)

By: Shooting Down Pictures » Blog Archive » 934. Unfaithfully Yours (1948, Preston Sturges) - video essay

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 12:47:34 +0000

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