What is happening in the opening credits? We see Colbert tied up in a closet...but there is no explanation.
And, near the end of the movie when Valle asks her if she happens to have a twin she says something like "That's what got us into this mess."
It seems there was something cut out that might have explained things.
I thought the opening credits were outtakes from another movie -- a prequel that shows how they get married. But I did some searching and I can't figure out the title of the other movie! Anyone out there know anything about it?
Thanks,
Karen
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I guess that's supposed to be her twin? What it all means, I've got no idea.
shareI don't totally recall the twins thing during the opening credits, but Colbert and McCrea break up at the beginning of the movie. Colbert flees to Palm Beach where she meets the wealthy Rudy Vallee character and his sister played by Mary Astor. McCrea follows her to Palm Beach and craziness ensues. Vallee falls for Colbert, and Astor is after McCrea. Colbert and McCrea remarry at the end of the movie, but it is a triple wedding. Rudy Vallee marries Colbert's twin sister, and Mary Astor marries McCrea's twin brother. It's a hoot!
shareThe sequence shows Colbert in an apartment getting ready for a wedding. At the same time you see a shots of a woman tied up in a closet. The woman in the closet is also Colbert. A maid enters and Colbert I appears to be surprised to see her. Colbert I then runs from the apartment and Colbert II, the one in the closet, starts kicking her way out of the closet and finally breaks through. You see her legs hanging out. The maid sees this and faints. Intercut with all this are shots of Joel McCrea getting ready for the wedding, but with no twin tied in a closet. Lastly you see them in church getting married and then a graphic saying "And they Lived Happily Ever After" "... Or Did They" This is the same graphic you see at the very end, after the triple wedding.
So what is all this frantic activity about? Did Colbert's twin object to the wedding, forcing her sister to tie her up in order to get to her own wedding? Or did twin I substitute herself for twin II and McCrea marry the wrong one? Nothing in the rest of the film explains this intro. Was it a plotline which was cut from the final version?
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could you guys be dumber? It's a prequel to a movie that never occured. A set of events that arnt addressed through the entire movie except in the very beginning and the very end. Its brilliant and for a hollywood movie, an amazing gesture towards the avant guarde. This beginning is much like the beginning of Sullivans Travels where it starts with two men wrestling on the top of a train and they both plunge off and the credit "The End" Pops up. The end?? its only the beginning! But in both cases sturges deconstructs not only the story, but film itself. He does this again with the experimentation in Unfaithfully Yours, which is surpirsingly dark and ironic. I think this is why he got so much press about 10 years ago, at the height of postmodernism.
sharewow, thast not very nice..could "you guys be dumber"? just because maybe they didn't realize this doesnt mean they're dumb..
sharecould you guys be dumber?
I read most of this page, and "nonuns" is the only one who would seem to get "The Palm Beach Story." Sturges was a screenwriter who became a film director out of "self defense." He was one of the few double threats lucky enough to see his visions reach the screen -- for a brief shining moment, anyway. The Palm Beach Story is indeed "two movies in one," the first shown during the credits. It's twin movies about twins. And Sturges was such a gifted screenwriter that he could toss two stories into the same movie, one a complete throwaway. It doesn't much matter what the first movie is about because it's the second story that clearly interests Sturges more -- a sex comedy about mistaken identity, with Claudette Colbert the subject of a delicious motif. To whit: the Joel McCrea character had lost interest in his wife other than as a possession, yet she is so delectable that no one else can resist her considerable charms. He only realizes what a plum she is when he is able to see her through another man's eyes. That said, I love this movie despite the Ale & Quail sequence, which I find rather unfunny (maybe it plays better on the big screen). The laughs come thicker with the introduction of the Rudy Vallee character (Hackensacker clearly based upon John D. Rockefeller) and the wonderful and under-rated Mary Astor, having another field day after playing Sam Spade's girl in "The Maltese Falcon." One last quibble: the stereotypical African-American roles (the porter is called "George," a mild 1930's racial epithet similar to calling a Black man "Uncle.") I don't recall Sturges resorting to such stereotypes in his other films.
shareGood points on the opening sequence, but I personally think the Ale & Quail club is the funniest part of the movie. Demarest saying that they need to organize a posse just about kills me every time.
Also, Sturges loves the racial and ethnic humor; he uses it to great effect in The Great McGinty, Sullivan's Travels, and a bunch of other places. It's pretty much always funny, too, because he does it with a nod to the absurdity of the situation, i.e. the fact that the black porter, George, is the only one in the Ale & Quail clubhouse who seems to have any sense whatsoever, yet he has to defer to these drunk, violent white aristocratic fat cats who are really in "control" of the situation.
"...the Joel McCrea character had lost interest in his wife other than as a possession, yet she is so delectable that no one else can resist her considerable charms. He only realizes what a plum she is when he is able to see her through another man's eyes."
Gotta disagree with you there, jajw. From the very beginning, Tom is against "the bust-up;" he even chases after her in his pajamas, gets a cop to apprehend her, follows her to the train station, and eventually to Florida. It was clear he was very much against her leaving him. Gerry's insistence was that he was only used to her, that she was holding him back, and could be of greater help to him as a "sister," especially if she snagged a rich guy to marry her.
Of course, she is still in love with him, but tries to talk herself out of it to justify leaving him. It's really more about her own insecurities; she spends quite a bit of time at the beginning trying to convince Tom that she's been a useless wife, unable to do all of the traditional things a wife is expected to do for her husband.
Poe! You are...avenged!
jajw wrote: One last quibble: the stereotypical African-American roles (the porter is called "George," a mild 1930's racial epithet similar to calling a Black man "Uncle.") I don't recall Sturges resorting to such stereotypes in his other films.
Sturges did not resort to racial epithets in any of his movies. The Pullman Company,(supplier of sleeping and dining cars and crews) mandated that all Pullman Porters be addressed as "George". They wanted to project a friendly and familiar face to the traveling public. And when I was growing up in the 40s, I called the couple who watched me while my mother worked in an airplane factory, Uncle John and Aunt Martha. Yes, they were Black, and I loved both of them, and used those titles with the utmost respect.
Actually, she explains "Oh didn't you know? that was how we were married in the beginning"(I think intimating that they were able to marry because they were twins).
It does feel like a preview to a prequel in the opening, but I don't think there was one (though it would probably have been a pretty fun movie, I enjoyed this one!). Anyway, I agree with another responder who said that the opening sequence was a sort of gimmick to give a feel of slightly off kilter insanity, and just sort of throw the viewer into the film. Apparently it was also some sort of trademark thing for the director to do.
My own personal theory is this: they substituted their siblings at the sibling's wedding. In the opening credits, Colbert is playing both herself and her twin sister (so they are identical twins). Apparently Gerry has tied up her sister and locked her in the closet (the family maid, being able to tell the to girls apart, screams and faints when she sees Gerry, the wrong sister, dressed as a bride). Meanwhile the Tom is also seen trading coats with the best-man, (thus presumably his brother; possibly the film didn't have the technology to allow the same actor to play both the man getting dressed and the man helping him to dress, which is why the best man and groom do not look a like in those scenes). Anyway, I think Gerry and Tom and his twin brother were in on a zany plot that would let Gerry and her boyfriend marry at what everyone else thought was to be her sister and his brother's wedding. This would explain how their both being twins allowed Gerry and her husband to get married. The two men are identical in the closing wedding scene because the direct could use split screen to line up the respective couples while doubling up on the two actors.
Any other takes on what was going on? I'd be interested to read them.
Apparently it was also some sort of trademark thing for the director to do.
This is one of those movies that you need to rewind constantly and keep the captions on. I believe that Gerry 1 tied up her twin because she wanted the successful brother for herself. Gerry does admit in a way that she thought that they'd be richer and does not like not having what she wants. Well enough that she loves him but confesses that she is not a good wife. She feels guilty that her twin could have made life better for him and she couldn't. Gerry 1 is stuck and cannot face family of either side when she leaves him with no where to turn with no ticket at the station. I also believe that they both could easily go to family for financal help but don't because of what Gerry did and the possibility of him being ridiculed for not recognizing the original bride.
OR - This was a true set up by both sets of twins for the set that were not to marry because of both sets parents did not approve. This may explain a few things.
SPOILERS: The Colbert we see through most of the movie is a gold digger. She plays the millionaires on the train to get her way, she plays Hackensacker for what she can get. And she almost marries Hackensacker in the end when she sees that rock. But she actually falls in love with her husband by that time and chooses him. The fact that he also gets the money for the airport doesn't hurt, though. If you notice, at the closing credits you hear crashing glass when they say "Happily ever after or did they?" It might be a cautionary tale about just marrying for looks (as the Hackensackers were doing) or just marrying for money (as Colbert kept trying to do all through the film). I think it's a clever gimmick to keep you thinking...Who was zooming who as they said a few years ago, who ended up with who and whether the thing at the beginning was actually about the wedding at the end or the beginning.
I just wish you had brought this up BEFORE I deleted it from TIVO! :o(
Actually, the first shot shows a maid talking on the phone. She turns and we see a shadow of a person. She screams and then faints. Was the person Gerry's twin?
It seems like the brides were switched or at least there was an attempted switch. I don't think it's a prequel to another movie, although it does feel like a different movie or a "whole 'nother plot" as McCrea's character says somewhere near the end.
One of the difficulties with a movie like this is separating the object of satire versus straight drama. What may seem like satire may actually be the way people behaved back in those days or at least how characters behaved in film.
I've seen just about every film Preston Sturges directed, and there's nothing like this opening sequence in any of the others. The sequence in Sullivan's Travels is clearly connected to the rest of the film. He's a comedy director who wants to make serious films. He's screening a film for his producers who are horrified by the new direction he wants to take his career. The film proceeds logically from that point. I don't think the mystery can be unraveled at this point without a lot of research, and maybe not then. Unless Sturges himself left notes explaining his intentions, I'm afraid we're all left with nothing but speculations.
shareI agree with penpaul The twin we see through most of the movie was not the intended bride and thought she would be rich not that she dosen't care for her husband but she clearly wants the good life-look at their apartment it was beyond their means but to please her that's were they lived,She felt guilty about it and wanted her husband to have better.At the end she does fall in love with him and only later find they are getting the money and their rich friends are getting what they want.Hopefully the all fall in love for real at some point!The movie has a frantic pace and one zany thing after another happens and that can be confusing but it's a screwball comedy.
shareokay how about this? Joel 2 doesn't want to go thru with his marriage to claudette 2 and would call the whole thing off if only he dared. Meanwhile Joel 1 has fallen in love with claudette 1 and vice-versa.
The three of them come up with the idea of the number ones substituting themselves for the number twos at the altar - claudette 1 tries to convince her sister but she refuses and so they have to tie her up.
Didn't a million people ask Preston Sturges What the Heck when it came out?
This is a madcap comedy whose opening credits sequence is simply a series of gags for which each viewer may, or may not, draw conclusions - or laughter! So far everyone seems to have overlooked that 'The Palm Beach Story' was made during the war, when people and soldiers had enough grim conclusions served up to them daily in the newspapers, on the radio, in newsreels, in war films, and in hundreds of thousands of heartbreaking telegrams delivered to their blue star doors. Audiences needed and wanted absurd comedies, gay musicals, and other softer, kinder, escapist fare than the worries for their boys that haunted their every moment outside of theatres. The opening sequence needs no "explanations" because in a madcap, purely escapist film like this there are so many dialogue non sequiturs and double-entendres that even the script is zany. Even the notion of designing, funding, and constructing a steel-cable-mesh airport above a city is, in the context of the war outside the theatre, sheer, amusing pie-in-the-sky.
share"A bride and groom are inexplicably prevented from attending their wedding by their exact doubles, who then marry" - Turner Classic Movies website description. Not that this description sheds a ton of light on the sequence but Turner Classic movies usually has the inside scoop on classic movies. plus this movie is supposed to be playing this month (03/06) on TCM and they always have that before and/or after information session about the movie, surely they'll say something about this confusing scene, because realy it is so confusing. i just wish we could at least hear what they're saying during the sequence that would help make more sense of the situation.
shareI watched last night, missing the scene in the beginning where the brothers switch coats. But it would explain why Twin Set #2 didn't marry.
If we can save humanity, we become the caretakers of the world
Here's how I interpreted it:
Tom and Gerry both have twins, and their twins were going to marry each other. Tom wants Gerry's sister. Gerry wants Tom's brother. HOWEVER, both switch places with their twins, and Tom ends up marrying Gerry. Gerry ties up her twin, thinking that she'll get to marry Tom's brother--the successful brother. Tom and his brother switch places, so that Tom can marry Gerry's sister. At least, that's what I thought happened. I think the whole thing is a fable about marrying for money vs. marrying for looks vs. marrying for love. Men marry women for their looks, women marry men for their money, but love triumphs over all. It's a very screwball comedy message. Not exactly a feminist picture, but I loved it all the same!
"I never drink...wine."
I spent 25 minutes reading all this and I'm more out of breath than a Preston Sturges movie. Is it just me or did anyone else notice - Tom & Gerry?? (Okay, spell it with a 'J' then!) Probably Sturges got the laugh on everybody, we should all just leave it at that. Personally, I reckon Sturges' best movie was "The Lady Eve". But that would be a whole new ball game.
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Here be SPOILERS...Read no further if you haven't seen the film
I've spent too many hours analyzing this, but I think I've figured it out:
1. From the opening credits we learn that Gerry is not the intended bride—the maid faints when she sees her in the wedding dress. (The maid's first faint is in response to seeing someone big—-Tom? Tom’s twin? A hired thug?—-whose task is presumably to immobilize Gerry’s twin.)
2. From this same montage we never learn who the intended groom is supposed to be; the evidence is mixed and inconclusive. At curbside (presumed) Tom keeps looking and gesturing back at the hotel. He is hastily dressing in the limo/cab at the last minute. He's somehow been prevented from arriving at the church sooner. What does this all mean? Has he pulled a fast one on his twin? Has his twin tried unsuccessfully to pull a fast one on him, having caught wind of the bride switch? It's never clear whether Tom or his twin brother is the intended groom. However, when they arrive at the altar, both bride and groom (Tom and Gerry) give each other looks of satisfaction. Ergo...
3. Gerry knew and got what she wanted (Tom). She really loves him, was possibly drawn to him originally because of his spectacular money-making potential, but absent his success and her domestic skills, she's come to feel that the only 'practical' way she can show her love is by using her sexuality (whether passively [e.g., Wienie King] or actively [e.g., Hackensacker]) by introducing him to (rich, male) patrons for his inventions. (Recall that she explicitly states that her intentions are to help him, even going so far as to express her willingness to submit her choices for targets for his approval.) Tom denies her this, because it's a direct insult to him as a 'good' husband (i.e., provider). Furthermore, he also denies her sexuality toward him because he's ashamed of his own failure. Until he can support her financially, he's something less than a man.
4. Tom knew and got what he wanted as well (Gerry). He tells her toward the end of the film that he's always loved her. Remember, he's the dreamer, and she's the practical one (some have characterized this as 'gold-digging,' but remember, this was a time of great economic uncertainty, and a time when women were much more economically dependent upon men than they are today). Tom's always known that she wasn't a 'good' wife domestically, but he's always believed that love would be enough. He beds her twice (despite his shame) during the film in the hopes that it will reignite the romance that first brought them together—which it does the second time, with an ironic assist from someone else taken by her sexual allure (Hackensacker who serenades them).
5. If 1. – 4. are true, then there are only two logical possibilities about the opening credits scene: either (a) Tom’s twin was the intended groom, and thus Tom and Gerry were involved in a double-switch (which doesn't make much sense, given 6. below), or-—much more likely—-(b) Tom was the intended groom, perhaps because he'd already promised himself to Gerry's twin even though he's sexually more attracted to Gerry. In that case, he doesn't have to be in on the switch although he probably is, given his inventiveness, but he's the beneficiary either way.
6. Gerry's twin and Tom's twin did *not* want or get each other. The fact that neither married *anyone* in the five years since the opening credits suggests that Gerry's twin also wanted Tom. The final scene, the triple-wedding, bears this out: Gerry’s twin first looks at Tom, then at Hackensacker. The look on her face indicates she’s making a direct comparison, and isn't completely satisfied with the outcome. (Both of these observations support 5(b) above.)
7. Tom's twin remains a mystery throughout the film. We never learn why he never married after the opening scene in which he may or may not have been the intended groom (perhaps he, like Tom, was enamored of Gerry's sexuality), and though Gerry proposes (at 14:56) that Tom could live with him after their divorce, the brothers share an interesting look in the final scene. Perhaps he has always been interested in Gerry after all.
Interestingly, four out of the six participants in the closing triple-wedding have "settled" for someone else. Could this be why "they all lived happily ever after" is doubtful? Or is it a commentary on the pluses and minuses of (not) getting whom you really want?
Nice work, soccin.
In my opinion, anyone trying to make complete sense out of the opening title sequence is grasping at straws. The Palm Beach Story is not about anything happening sensibly. This is Sturges farce at its ripest. What's always been hilarious about the opening to me is that you completely forget it until the film's final moment, when the joke's on us. How can all the romantic dilemmas resolve themselves? We've been shown the overwhelmingly confusing answer right at the start - we just can't understand it, nor is it going to be explained to us. (The ending is straight out of classical farce, including a nod to the artifice of all we've witnessed - Tom's "Of course, that's another plot entirely.")
One note:
As with Gerry and her twin, we do indeed see both Tom and his twin in the opening:
The first Joel McCrea we see exits a posh building, upset, and approaches two men and a taxi. McCrea looks back at the building (whose awning tells us it's not the building Colbert and her twin are in), highly upset. He's impeccably dressed, wearing a light-colored tie, light vest and slacks, and a white lapel flower. (The image freezes here under the film's title.) He proceeds to get in the taxi with one of the men, who is tall and debonaire and appears to be the best man.
After more business with both Colberts and the maid, Sturges then cuts to the interior of a DIFFERENT car and a second Joel McCrea. This one is frantically dressing into a dark checked tie, dark vest, striped pants and a dark lapel flower, and is with an entirely different best man than the first McCrea. It is this second McCrea and best man, hastily thrown together in the car, that we see enter the church and marry Colbert. This couple, of course, is Tom and Gerry. Like Gerry's twin in the closet, somehow Tom's twin (the upset first McCrea, perfectly dressed with the debonaire best man) appears to have been tricked out of his wedding.
But was he?
Here's my theory: The first Joel McCrea we see under the film's title (Tom's twin, highly upset, well-dressed, debonaire best man, awning, taxi) is actually LEAVING the church to find out what's happened to the missing bride. At the same time, the second Joel McCrea (Tom) is on his way TO the church, getting dressed in the car. Which leads me to believe that...
Tom and Gerry's sister (the "good" twins, if you will) were the intended bride and groom. Each of their "bad" twins (Gerry and Tom's twin) has separately plotted to replace their respective sibling at the wedding. Tom's brother has tried to waylay Tom in some manner in order to falsely marry Gerry's sister, and Gerry has locked her sister in a closet in order to falsely marry Tom. While Tom's "bad twin" brother leaves the church in the taxi to find out what's happened to the bride (Gerry's "good twin" sister), Tom miraculously arrives, still dressing, having escaped whatever trap his brother had set up for him. Gerry's sister isn't so lucky, and "bad twin" Gerry arrives at the church and successfully marries the unknowingly deceived "good twin" Tom.
I like this theory for several reasons. 1) It's in keeping with Tom and Gerry's personalities - Tom is the duped and Gerry is the duper (a super duper, I might add); 2) This explains why Tom's "bad" twin and Gerry's "good" twin wouldn't have simply married each other - they were never a couple; 3) It makes the final pairing perfect - as his comeuppance, Tom's "bad" twin has gotten the bubbleheaded Princess, and as her reward, Gerry's "good" twin has gotten John D. Hackensacker III, the wealthiest man in the country. And Tom and Gerry, of course, have at last found a meeting point, and possibly real love - with each other.
Or have they?
Cheers! :)
"It isn't how you look, it's how you behave that counts in this world." - Officer O'Donnell to Gerry, The Palm Beach Story
AH!! This makes the most sense!
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Exactly, they each plot to replace themselves at the wedding and end up marrying the wrong twin. To put it simply. The "Or did they?" indicating, among other things, the mistake in the madcap.
As for some people not clearly understanding the conceit here, I would liken it to what Sturges did several years later with The Sin of Harold Diddlebock - where the opening sequence was the finale from The Freshman. It's exactly the same bit, except the beginning of The Palm Beach Story is the end of a movie that never existed.
It's a pretty brilliant storytelling device, and an interesting deconstructionist coda and commentary for the screwball genre he helped pioneer. It's definitely from the same train of thought that led Sullivan's Travels to be exactly the movie Sullivan first rebelled against, then wanted to make and ultimately resigned to make all in one, while simultaneously being about the preproduction of that movie.
I think you've almost got it, and my version is going to steal shamelessly from yours. But I think my character motivations make more sense.
Tom is bold and forceful and imaginative, and his romantic and practical sides are at war with one another. He has an unimaginitive, down-to-earth, eminently practical twin, whom we'll call Dick. Dick is bound to be successful doing something boring.
Gerry is a zany, head-in-the-clouds dreamer who can't cook or sew, and she, too, has a basically boring and competent twin, whom we'll call Jane. (Tom and Gerry being zany while Dick and Jane just watch Spot.)
Tom meets and dates both Gerry and Jane. He is of course attracted to both. Both girls are smitten with him: Gerry sees a potential kindred spirit whose dreams need to be encouraged, Jane is attracted because he has all the qualities she lacks.
Meanwhile, Dick arrives and also meets both twins. He falls every hard for Gerry for the same reason that Jane has fallen for Tom: opposites attract, and Gerry promises an escape from his own lack of imagination and inevitable boring life. He is not taken at all by Jane, who in her practicality offers nothing he can't provide himself. Gerry likes Dick, and appreciates his practicality, but they don't spend a lot of time together; she has already settled on Tom.
Tom loves Gerry and very much likes Jane. His heart tells him to marry Gerry, his head, and very probably his friends and family, tell him that the practical Jane would be a much better match. He proposes to Jane.
Gerry plots to replace her twin at the wedding, knowing (correctly) that Tom will actually be secretly pleased and relieved that he has been forced to follow his heart and not his head.
Dick somehow learns of the plot. He could never have come up with something like that himself, being unimaginitive, but he absolutely could copy it. So he plans to do the same thing, thinking that if Gerry simply spends some time with him, she will grow to appreciate his practical qualities and his ability to provide for her.
And then it plays out as you suggest. Dick ties up Tom and arrives at the wedding. Gerry ties up Jane and heads to the wedding late. Dick, wondering where Gerry is and very much fearing that her plot has failed and that Jane will arrive instead, leaves the wedding. Tom escapes and arrives just as Gerry does.
As for the other two couples ... while Jane is bound to find marriage to Hackensacker satisfying, he's very likely to find her unexciting compared to Gerry. Likewise, while Dick will likely find in the Princess some of the zaniness that he liked in Gerry, the Princess will probably be bored out of her mind in about a month. If there's a romantic message at all, it's that screwball-ness is endearing, and its opposite isn't worth actually portraying on film!
Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.share
Dear God, my head hurts. But that is a brilliant summary, soccin.
As for me, I love that the film makes me forget about the twin subplot the moment the credit "or did they?" flashes on-screen the first time, because I am laughing hysterically at the sound of the discordant trumpets. That is just brilliant screwball comedy- only matched by the end credits, when the "William Tell Overture" is replaced by "The War March of the Priests," and they do it all over again- including the breaking glass.
Thank-you for your summary. It does explain why one set of twins does not marry, if they were intended to be married.
So the original groom switches places with his brother, hoping he will marry the original bride. But the new groom and bride cook up a scheme to replace the original bride with her. The new bride and groom marry as they planned. That would explain the coat switch and the maid fainting a second time when she sees the "groom".
If we can save humanity, we become the caretakers of the world