If you’ve seen Superman: The Movie (1978), you surely remember the character of Perry White, the tough-as-nails editor of The Daily Planet. Played pitch-perfect by actor Jackie Cooper, he’s one of the comedic highlights of the picture. “I want the name of this flying whatchamacallit to go with the Daily Planet like bacon and eggs! Franks and beans! Death and taxes! Politics and corruption!”

Cooper delivers his one-liners in a Preston Sturges staccato that helps give the 1970s film a pleasant 1930s gloss, bridging the gap between comic book and movie. But if, like me, you were just a kid when you saw Superman, you may not have known that here was an actor who, fifty years earlier, was one of the most popular and recognizable in the world, courtesy of a little picture called The Champ. (more…)

Four years before they would make noir history teaming up to commit a sordid murder-for-profit in Billy Wilder’s “Double Indemnity,” in the first of their four cinematic pairings, Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck would find true love courtesy of  genius screenwriter Preston Sturges in “Remember the Night,” a Christmas-themed romance by way of road comedy with just a dash of social statement.

Set in New York during the busy shopping season, Lee Leander (Stanwyck) might be the best dressed shoplifter you’ll ever meet when she’s busted by the cops and tossed in jail. A three-time loser, Lee is facing some real prison time and it’s the job of prosecutor John Sargent (MacMurray) to see to it she serves it. But in a crazy contrivance only a writer as brilliant as Sturges could sell, Sargent is convinced to let Lee out of jail and then offers to drop her off at her family home in Indiana for the Christmas holidays. (more…)