Preston Sturges

"The latest novel in the acclaimed Shortcut Man series is a rousing tale of sex, sleaze, and salvation in the City of Angels that's "filled with enough dark humor and shady characters to satisfy the most rabid noir fan" (Associated Press). Our hero Dick Henry--aka the Shortcut Man--becomes involved in a case featuring an aging but still amorous Los Angeles movie mogul named Howard Hogue who keeps a stable of young starlets available for his highly...

Barbara Stanwyck sizzles, Henry Fonda bumbles, and Preston Sturges runs riot in one of the all-time great screwballs, a pitch-perfect blend of comic zing and swoon worthy romance that Sturges wrote, directed, and produced. Aboard a cruise liner sailing up the coast of South America, Stanwyck's conniving card sharp sets her sights on Fonda's nerdy snake researcher, who happens to be the heir to a brewery fortune. But when the con artist falls for her...

Ashamed of his discharge from the military due to chronic allergies, Woodrow Truesmith dupes his family and hometown, with the help of a group of Marines, by pretending he served in the Pacific theater and that he was honorably discharged for being wounded in action.

A successful Hollywood director disguises himself as a bum and sets off to see America from the bottom up. In the midst of the brutality and despair, he makes a valuable discovery-- that what the downtrodden need most is laughter.

Fired from his job after 20 years, Harold, an accountant, goes on a drunken spree and wakes up the owner of a moth-eaten and bankrupt circus and eventually winds up hanging from a tall building with a huge lion menacing him.

Classy shoplifter Lee Leander, on trial for swiping a diamond bracelet, has her case postponed by Assistant District Attorney John Sargent until after Christmas. Taking pity on her, he bails her out of jail. He's driving home to Indiana for the holidays, and when he finds Lee's a Hoosier too, offers to drop her at her mother's on the way. When she's rejected by her mother, he brings her home to his place where his mother, his aunt and their farmhand,...

Mary Smith is a poor working girl who literally has a fortune dropped in her lap when a wealthy financier tosses a sable coat out a window and it lands on her. Everyone automatically assumes she's his mistress, and soon her fairytale-like rags-to-riches lifestyle threatens a very real romance with an inept waiter.

"It's the ultimate battle of the sexes when a wealthy heir (Henry Fonda) falls (literally!) for a con woman (Barbara Stanwyck) with a shady past."

A go-getter clerk in a coffee company, is fooled into thinking he's won a $25,000 prize for inventing a sales slogan. When a trio of practical jokers at Maxford Coffee send him a phony congratulatory telegram announcing that he's the contest winner, he and his girlfriend go off on a mammoth Christmas shopping binge, even though it's the middle of July. Suddenly, the head of Maxford Coffee discovers the mistake, and their spending spree turns into...