Miracle au village

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.

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.

Although I've always preferred Palm Beach Story this is my 2nd favourite Preston Sturges film (Lady Eve 3rd). It still makes me hoot with laughter or bring tears to my eyes by turns even though I know it's basically only satirical screwball comedy. The problem is that anybody watching this who doesn't know anything at all about Hollywood censorship and the Hays Office is likely to be very puzzled by it all and hardly understand it. The tortuous plot was solely meant to circumvent and sneer at the prevailing censorship enforcement, whilst simultaneously maintaining the standard decorum expected from media in 1942-44. Otherwise we might have been treated (among many other things) to coitus scenes with Ratzkywatzky, Officer Kockenlocker comically swearing his head off or at the very least a shot of Trudy's belly at Christmas. Nowadays with the relentless progress of acceptable "taste" none of this matters - we are not spared the littlest thing!

The main actors give it their best and play it with gusto: live-wire Betty Hutton and 4F Eddie Bracken as the simple young lovers who don't find it so simple, Diana Lynn as her sidekick cynical 14 yo sister, but especially William Demarest who turned in his finest knockabout and farcically violent performance here - at 50, too. I think it also helps to have seen Star Spangled Rhythm with Hutton and Bracken really "enjoying" themselves in a ... more light-hearted way before seeing this. My favourite bits are the scenes where Norval and Trudy are preparing to leave home and get "married", both of them joyfully stuttering away.

The Production Code was ridiculously strict - I've even thought it was designed by a bunch of perverts - but it at least provided some kind of discipline to all concerned. It's a discipline that is completely missing from todays films, except for my personal discipline in avoiding most of them. This is a wonderful film, the old story told cleverly and differently about simple people in Hicksville having fun and paying the price. Even only 2/3 years later Sturges would have done it differently, but along with Capra's "Arsenic and old lace" this has got to be one of the best of the many tombstones over the grave of the Hays Office there is.

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.

From the very start they're off and running. Even under the opening credits cast members are seen frantically gesticulating and flailing. And the movie has hardly begun.

So what's to be done with the next 98 minutes, if one begins climatically sweating and pulsating? Ease up the pace a bit to allow viewer to catch his breath?

Not Director Sturges: he continues to plow through this comedy at breakneck speed, as though any repose might prove fatal.

We get two super energetic starts--Bracken and Hutton--and a cast of obedient supports obeying the eager director's every frenetic command. We end with one of the screwiest screwball comedies of the forties.

This film has acquired a devoted following of supporters who find "Morgan's Creek" very funny, along with a goodly number of detractors, who see it as an essentially strained and bloated one-joke yarn.

As usual, Sturges makes sharp social comments along the way and handles large groups with Capraesque skill. But that he manages to maintain his unrelentingly breathless pace throughout the shoot may be the real miracle of Morgan's Creek.