Frank Rich - (Movie Promo) Guest Programmer, July 2013

Palm Beach Story, The (1942) -- (Movie Clip) Not John D. Hackensacker?

Following their whirlwind meeting on a train, Gerry (Claudette Colbert), who's left her husband in order to raise money for him by pretending she's his sister, learns just how rich her obsessively frugal new friend (Rudy Vallee) really is, in Preston Sturges' The Palm Beach Story, 1942.

Palm Beach Story, The (1942) -- (Movie Clip) Very Few Pretty Girls Brothers Have Ever Failed

Over dinner, woozy Gerry (Claudette Colbert) tries to convince her idealistic architect spouse Tom (Joel McCrea) that she'd be more help to his career if she posed as his sister, in Preston Sturges' The Palm Beach Story, 1942.

Palm Beach Story, The (1942) -- (Movie Clip) You're Light As A Feather

Stuck on the train and fleeing her now-drunken escorts from the Quail & Ale club, freeloader Gerry (Claudette Colbert) meets Rudy Vallee, asleep in a lower berth, without even the opportunity to introduce himself, in Preston Sturges' The Palm Beach Story, 1942.

Palm Beach Story, The (1942) -- (Movie Clip) This Human Bacterium!

Tom (also "Mac," Joel McCrea), reluctantly pretends to woo "The Princess" (Mary Astor) while his wife Gerry (Claudette Colbert), pretending to be his sister, griping about her lousy fictional husband, works on Mary's brother, super-rich Hackensacker (Rudy Vallee), hoping to secure funds for Joel's airport idea, in Preston Sturges' The Palm Beach Story, 1942.

Palm Beach Story, The (1942) -- (Movie Clip) My Brother, Captain McGlue

Now in Palm Beach with billionaire beau Hackensacker (Rudy Vallee), Gerry (Claudette Colbert) introduces his oft-married sister (Mary Astor) to her unexpected husband Tom (Joel McCrea), who had arrived intending to end her elaborate scam, in Preston Sturges' The Palm Beach Story, 1942.