Movie Recommendations

The fun-loving and recently deceased Kerbys (Cary Grant and Constance Bennett) decide they won’t be free to shuffle off the mortal coil until they help their stuffy banker acquaintance Topper lighten up.

First-rate comedy/western about a soft-spoken lawman who doesn’t want to use his guns, even though he’s the son of a famous gun-wielding lawman. Jimmy Stewart is at his aw-shucks peak, and Marlene Dietrich has never been better—especially when she sings the show-stopper See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have.

Though not as perfect as Sturges’s Sullivan’s Travels or The Lady Eve, this effort comes close. Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert are wonderful as the faltering marrieds, but you’ll never forget the Ale and Quail Club, the Wienie King, Rudy Vallee, and Mary Astor.

Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, and other inept crooks decide they must murder their landlady to keep her silent. Is one little old lady a match for five hardened criminals?

Preston Sturges’s wonderfully acerbic fantasy of a famed conductor contemplating revenge for his wife’s infidelity while leading the orchestra through three pieces.

Lightning-fast screwball comedy of Berlin-based Coca-Cola executive Jimmy Cagney frantically trying to cover up his daughter’s marriage to a Communist.

Engagingly theatrical feature has some wonderful characters and sparkling tunes.