![](http://image.absoluteastronomy.com/images//topicimages/t/th/the_palm_beach_story.gif)
screwball comedy
film written and directed by Preston Sturges
, and starring Claudette Colbert
, Joel McCrea
, Mary Astor
and Rudy Vallée
. Victor Young
contributed the lively musical score, including a fast-paced variation of William Tell Overture
for the opening scenes. Typical for a Sturges movie, the pacing and dialogue of The Palm Beach Story are very fast.
Tom and Gerry Jeffers (Joel McCrea
and Claudette Colbert
) are a married couple in New York City
who are down on their luck financially, which is pushing the marriage to an end.
Anyway, men don't get smarter as they get older. They just lose their hair.
Don't you know that the greatest men in the world have told lies and let things be misunderstood if it was useful to them? Didn't you ever hear of a campaign promise?
I don't begin and end with a smelter, you know.
You have no idea what a long-legged gal can do without doing anything.
You're married to me; that's like saying, you're blind to me. For a long time, I've been a part of you, just something to snuggle up to and keep you warm at night, like a blanket, but you can't see me any more than you can see the back of your neck.
You're not being rude, dear, you're just being yourself.
Chivalry is not only dead, it's decomposed.
No, I'm not my grandfather, of course. He's dead, anyway.
Staterooms are un-American.
That's one of the tragedies of this life - that the men who are most in need of a beating up are always enormous.