Preston Sturges and four by Elliott J. Clawson.) Though he had a thirty-year Hollywood career, Sturges' greatest comedies were filmed in a furious five-year burst of activity from 1939 to 1944, during which he turned out "The Great McGinty", "Christmas in July", "The Lady Eve", "Sullivan's Travels", "The Palm Beach Story", "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" and "Hail the Conquering Hero". Half a century later, four of these – "The Lady Eve", "Sullivan's Travels", "The Palm Beach Story" and "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" – were chosen by the American Film Institute as being among the 100 funniest American films. The film
The French, They Are a Funny Race but was not a hit in the US. The French, They Are a Funny Race The French, They Are a Funny Race — known in France as Les Carnets du Major Thompson ("The Notebooks of Major Thompson") and in the U.K. as The Diary of Major Thompson — is a 1955 comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, based on the novel by Pierre Daninos, and starring Jack Buchanan and Martine Carol. This was the last film directed by Preston Sturges as well as the last film for actor Jack Buchanan before his death from spinal cancer on 20