refill

Saw this at its 20th-anniversary screening at the 2013 Edmonton International Film Festival. It was great to see how well it has stood the test of time, and to see it on the big screen.

It's not a perfect film—it's a bit of a shaggy-dog tale, and some of the comic elements work better than others. That said, its pleasures vastly outweigh any of its flaws. Some fantastic comedic performances, most notably from underused First Nations actor Sam Bob and Battlestar Galactica's Michael Hogan.

The director, Francis Damberger, is selling DVD copies of the film in an attempt to raise the capital needed for a proper high-definition digital transfer of the film. Send a few bucks his way, snag your own personal copy of the movie, and help preserve this classic slice of Canadiana while we still can! For info, email him: dfcc.fran-at-gmail-dot-com.

...and this is easily among his finest (and funniest) of his earthly works. Eddie Bracken manages to be hilarious and heartbreakingly lovable -- just as he was in "Miracle of Morgan's Creek." The entire ensemble of Sturges stalwarts -- people like the immortal Raymond Walburn and William Demarest -- are at the absolute top of their game.

With crackling dialogue, finely drawn characters and a pell-mell plot, "Hail the Conquering Hero" is proof positive that comedy can be great art. More than six decades after it was made, it feels funnier and fresher than any comedy you're likely to see today.

This comedy is an unstoppable snowball, gaining size and momentum as it barrels down a mountainside. See it, and then seek out Sturges's other masterworks.

I can't add much to wmorrow59's excellent summary. It caught the strengths and weaknesses of this film and provided excellent historical background. Be sure to read it.

This film is only worth watching if you're a Preston Sturges fanatic (like me) and are willing to sit through his one failure as well as his many triumphs. I have a hunch that the studio meddling accounts for much of the trouble -- the movie's pace and structure are erratic at best -- but I also fear that our man Preston may have wandered too far from his natural path as a filmmaker. This is no buried treasure. Sturges's cut may have been an improvement, but I don't see the makings of a good movie here. The dialogue is weird when it isn't plain awful, the protagonist is a pigheaded dimwit, and the moments of slapstick are wildly misplaced.

If you buy Turner's incredible 7-film Sturges box set, do so for the other six titles -- all of them masterpieces.