Miracle au village

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.

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.

Writer-director Preston Sturges is generally regarded as one of the greatest comic talents ever, and his impeccable track record--including The Lady Eve and Sullivan's Travels--is more than worthy of the praise. Often overlooked, The Miracle Of Morgan's Creek ranks with Sturges' absolute best work.

Sturges takes an almost Capra-esque WWII America and turns it on its pointy little head, with Betty Hutton as a girl who's more than willing to give "the boys" departing for the war the utmost reason to fight for our country. Stripped of her usual production numbers, Hutton cranks up her comic acting skills and creates a surprisingly rich characterization of a young woman straining against the restrictive social attitudes of the time. Eddie Bracken is his usual self-effacing self, and his sad-sack Norval Jones is an earnest, often moving portrayal of the kind of understanding, devotion and love almost never seen in American movies of the era.

A "screwball comedy" only on paper, the often frenetic pacing and physical humor was sufficient to distract censors (and often audiences) from Morgan Creek's almost brutally derisive satire about the hypocrisy of small town "values" and military behavior during wartime, satire that still resonates given the current political climate. No target is safe, from "the troops" and bucolic Anywhere USA to state governors, the Dionne quints, and Adolf Hitler. Sturges pushed hard against the production code and probably earned a few ulcers slipping racy plot twists and subversive dialogue past the censors, but the results were well worth the Maalox. One of the funniest and most pointed satirical comedies ever produced.

This is an amusing farce guaranteed to bring some good hearted laughter as it recounts the story of a small town girl's indiscretion that has to be covered up with a series of lies. Betty Hutton is terrific as the partyloving gal who can't remember the man she married during a drunken joyride. Eddie Bracken as her nerdy but loyal boyfriend has the kind of role he was born to play--as does William Demarest as her outraged father who always has his shotgun ready and complains about having two rambunctious daughters. Diana Lynn shines as Betty's younger sister. Her scenes with William Demarest are among the funniest in the entire film--even though her 14 year-old seems a bit too sensible at such a tender age.

All of the main cast are perfect. Demarest never had a funnier role in his life. His pratfalls are performed as naturally as the great silent comics.

The technique of long takes with lots of dialogue going on must have been very demanding for Hutton and Bracken--but they handle it brilliantly. Many of their scenes are done in one long take and it's amazing how much material and physical comedy they had to memorize for such extended takes.

Some of the storyline seems a bit dated by today's standards but on the whole the film holds up well in the laugh department. I liked it much better than HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO with Bracken in a similar role.

Preston Sturges deserved his nomination for Best Original Screenplay but lost the award to Lamar Trotti for WILSON. Sturges was also nominated the same year for HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO.