Sensation in Morgan's Creek

This movie may be the best comedy produced during World War II, especially in reference to the timing and the language related to the humorous treatment of a serious subject. Eddie Bracken is superb as Norval Jones, and delivers lines in a rapid-fire fashion that intensifes the satire. Betty Hutton as Trudy Kockenlocker is the perfect foil for Norval. Where Norval is witty, Trudy is coy. Norval anticipates problems, Trudy is expedient. Norval is so nervous that he sees "black spots" when agitated, Trudy is calm--though in trouble. And the constant conflict between Emmy (Diana Lynn) and Constable Kockenlocker(William Demarest) is typical of a wisecracking teen and an overly protective widower. There is hardly a funnier scene in movies than the marriage ceremony for Trudy and Norval. The humor in the whole movie seems to improve with each subsequent viewing.

Great movies are movies you can't bear to see end, no matter how many times you've seen 'em. They play new the second, third, tenth time around; catching the light at angles you'd never seen them in before, gaining richness and profundity in familiar details while throwing never-noticed subtleties into sudden high relief. They awaken you to reserves of emotion inside yourself that are plumbed so rarely, you'd almost forgotten you had them in you all along. They are one-to-one experiences - even if you see a film like Preston Sturges' MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK in a packed revival house laughing uproariously en masse, you can only share a surface pleasure with those strangers: the deeper joys of this movie are yours and yours alone, shocking you into an awareness of how potent the alchemy of a great film can be, no matter how often you've felt that seismic shift with other great films. Even when you encounter an idiotic review that completely, callously, misses the whole point, you can't even get angry - how could you? A STAR WARS or Tarantino fan clucking terms like 'dated' or 'foolish' at a Preston Sturges movie is too pitiable a wretch to deserve actual scorn: maybe one day they'll figure it out, if they're lucky. MIRACLE turns out to be aptly titled, as this heady, unduplicable blend of slapstick, sitcom, surrealism and sharply observed slice-of-life manages to embody WW2-era popular entertainment while standing as far apart and above all its contemporaries as is humanly possible. The genius of Sturges was not that he ran end-runs around the censors but that he subverted them from the safest place to do so, deep within the fortress of the Production Code. The story of a small-town girl who finds herself both married and unmarried at the same time - but DEFINITELY pregnant in either case - is deliriously funny and brimming with great heart and honest sentiment, yet it's never less than a devastating indictment of the kind of mean-spirited provincialism that brought the Code into being in the first place. Rather than single out exemplary performances, I direct you instead to the complete cast-list (for the mark of a Preston Sturges movie is a wealth of expert actors, each blessed with scenes and dialogue devised to play to their respective strengths). Thus, the Esther Howards and Porter Halls shine as indelibly in small roles as the leads do - here, Bracken, Hutton, Lynn & Demarest, all inspired. If you haven't yet seen this unforgettable jewel, beat a path to wherever it is you have to beat a path to, and rectify the situation immediately: you should be ready for your second viewing about three minutes after the end credits run.

I first saw "Miracle" during WW2, sitting on an emptied bomb crate in a field where Special Services had set up a screen. We soldiers howled with laughter. Since then I have seen it a few more times and I enjoy it more than ever.

Preston Sturges is often referred to as "the king of the screwball comedy," the acknowledged master of writing and directing this tricky variant combining rapid-fire repartee dialogue with the occasional slapstick pratfall. A lot easier to describe in words than to execute on a movie screen. Equally interesting is what Hollywood and the Hays Code allowed him to get away with, as in this above-average example starring Betty Hutton, Eddie Bracken, Diana Lynn as Betty's sister, & William Demarest as her cantankerous dad. Against her father's wishes, and w/enabling assistance from Bracken and Lynn, Hutton goes to a send off for departing soldiers, accidentally gets drunk, is married to one of the soldiers in an impromptu ceremony, and then promptly forgets which soldier was the groom. But the more scandalous part back in 1943, when this movie was made, was the revelation that this single-night soirée has resulted in Hutton's pregnancy. Yowza! The best aspects of the story here are 1) that nobody thinks of Hutton's character as a tramp or floozy, and 2) that the whole situation in which she finds herself is just considered wacky and doesn't change Bracken's genuine and long-standing love and admiration for her. I can't believe this plotline got to theater screens virtually unchanged from Sturges original screenplay, which went on to be nominated for an Oscar. Like so many of Preston Sturges' screwball comedies, this one's right in there over home plate. 8/10.

In the middle of WWII comes this film that is full of references to that war yet manages to undermine the usual image of the valiant warrior marching off to battle, suggesting that along the way one of them took advantage of a tipsy girl, maybe even drugged her drink from her lack of recollection of the evening that was supposed to be an innocent farewell dance for the soldiers, and left her pregnant from a one night stand, never to inquire about her again. In the 21st century date rape comes to mind. If it was even a date.

Now of course this soldier is never found or named. And instead a sanitized version of the story appears. What I wrote in the first paragraph is strictly between the lines. Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) is an underaged girl, probably late teens, back when legal age was 21, who is told by her widowed father, the town constable (William Demarest), that she is not to go to the farewell party because he rightly fears the rowdiness of the event. So Trudy says instead she will go to the movies with Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken). She knows he loves her and she is accustomed to using him, although she would probably never admit that to herself. So she borrows Norval's car, tells him she will pick him up after the last feature, but does not appear again until the next morning at 8AM, with a big blank where the latter part of the evening should be. As they drive away a "Just Married" sign falls off of the car's rear bumper, and when Trudy gets home she notices she is wearing a ring. Slowly, through the haze of memory, a "maybe" wedding comes back to her, but not the who or where. The trouble appears later when Trudy realizes she is pregnant by her anonymous husband, and she has no marriage license to prove her story.

As in any Sturges film, there is a veritable cornucopia of wonderful one liners, which can come from any and every member of the large comic ensemble cast, at any time. No scene is too sacred, including a wedding, or a father's viewing of his newborn children. As for the cast, Hutton plays it sweet and somewhat dizzy, showing that she could prevail in other genres besides musicals, Eddie Bracken plays it nervous and a bit over the top as the only man in Morgan's Creek between 18 and 40 who is not in the military because of his 4F status, and the always funny William Demarest is full of pratfalls and one liners and even compassion when it is called for as Trudy's exasperated dad.

Why does this remain in Paramount's possession when they sold off just about every other talking picture made between 1929 and 1949 to Universal? It is because, at the time, nobody believed anyone would ever allow this to be shown on TV.

Highly recommended.