The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek ***** (1944, Eddie Bracken, Betty Hutton, Diana Lynn, William Demarest, Porter Hall, Brian Donlevy, Akim Tamiroff) – Classic Movie Review 2622

Writer-producer-director Preston Sturges’s much-loved 1944 screwball comedy The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is one of his handful of great cinema classics.

Sturges’s funny, frantic and tasteless attack on many of America’s most sacred cows from religion to politics must have been a bit of a shock, especially in World War Two wartime. But it won him many fans and admirers, and it also won him an Oscar nomination as writer.

In a storyline that must have shocked the US censor of the day, stuttering Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken) tries to help small-town girl Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) after she gets drunk and then pregnant by one of a variety of GIs and gives birth to sextuplets. In fact, there were so many objections from the censors that Sturges began production with only ten approved pages of script. Ah, the happy days of censorship!

The lusty Trudy is fond of soldiers and wakes up one morning after a wild farewell party for a group of GIs to find that while drunk the night before, she married a soldier whose name she can’t remember, except that ‘it had a zin it. Like Ratzkiwatzki or was it Zitzkiwitzki?’

After she learns she also became pregnant that night, Norval, a man who has been in love with Trudy for years, steps in to help out. But Trudy’s over-protective policeman father intervenes, Norval is arrested on 19 charges and goes on the run. Then Trudy gives birth to sextuplets…

[Spoiler alert] Somehow Sturges tunnels out of this daft plot and it won’t surprise anyone that it has a happy ending. The final title card reads: ‘But Norval recovered and became increasingly happy for, as Shakespeare said: “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them”.’ Ah, the happy days of final title cards!

The distinguished comedic actors are at their peak, especially the marvellous Bracken and William Demarest as Trudy’s dad, Constable Kockenlocker. Substituting vibrancy and pizzazz for warmth and charisma, Hutton is a strident player, very much a matter of taste, but she is seen at her best here. Brian Donlevy  and Akim Tamiroff reprise their roles from Sturges’s 1940 film The Great McGinty as Governor McGinty and The Boss. It also stars Diana Lynn, Porter Hall and Alan Bridge.

Packed with lovely actors and great gags, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is a delicious, enduring comedy miracle. Sturges’s screenplay was reworked in 1958 as Rock-a-Bye Baby, starring Jerry Lewis. Bracken went on to appear in Sturges’ next film, Hail the Conquering Hero.

Also in the cast are Almira Sessions, Jimmy Conlin, Emory Parnell, Julius Tannen, Victor Potel, Hank Bell, Jan Buckingham, Georgia Caine, Bill Cartledge, Nora Cecil, Chester Conklin, Hal Craig, Roger Creed, Joe Devlin, Robert Dudley, Budd Fine, Byron Foulger, Kenneth Gibson, Eddie Hall, Louis Jean Heydt, Esther Howard, Arthur Hoyt, Judith Lowry, J Farrell MacDonald, George Melford, Torben Meyer, Frank Moran, Jack Norton, Keith Richards, Harry Rosenthal, Freddie Steele, Connie Tomkins, Max Wagner and Bobby Watson as Adolf Hitler (uncredited).

Paramount Pictures wanted Sturges to stop using the same stock company of character actors over and over again, but he said ‘these little players who had contributed so much to my first hits had a moral right to work in my subsequent pictures’. It is the eighth of ten Demarest appearances in Sturges’s films.

Hail the Conquering Hero was released on DVD in 2005.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2622

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com