The Miracle of Morgan's Creek

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
January 1944
Paramount
Comedy
VHS
A-

Seventy years later, this remains an amazing comedy.  Funny yes, not only in its dialogue (I just caught "repairing the morals of a minor" this time) and slapstick (William Demarest does incredible pratfalls, especially for a man in his 50s).  But it's also wise and surprisingly sweet.  It has a fantastic central cast-- Betty Hutton as the girl in big trouble, Eddie Bracken as her devoted suitor, Diana Lynn as the best kid sister ever, and Demarest as the gruff yet well-meaning papa-- but every role is just right.  Preston Sturges got not just a line or two past the censors (the main family's name is Kockenlocker, although Sturges couldn't have known that seven decades later there'd be a suggestive homophone for Mr. Tuerck), but the main idea and much else.  An exchange like "What's the matter with gas?" [for suicide]/ "What's the matter with bigamy?" is unimaginable in any other Code-era movie.  The film also offers a cynical, although not mean-spirited, view of small-town life, as well as of course of "boosting the troops' spirits."  Yet there is much kindness in the film, even from the very cynical lawyer.  The ending still packs a wallop, although less than it did when the Dionne quintuplets weren't even a decade old.

If I have any quibbles, they're that the stuttering, by Bracken and then Hutton, is a bit overdone (it does provide some humor though, as well as affect the plot); and the bank robbery towards the end feels unnecessary in terms of plot and pacing.  Still, I've watched this film twice in the last few months and would happily watch it every month if I had to.  I hope to get the DVD someday, and I know I really should see more Sturges movies, although I fear they could never live up to this.

Nora Cecil, who plays the head nurse, was in The Old Fashioned Way.  Porter Hall, who was Murphy in His Girl Friday, is the Justice of the Peace here.  Jack Norton was in The Bank Dick.  Robert Dudley was in Citizen Kane.  Bill Cartledge was in Playmates.  Max Wagner would go on to It's a Wonderful Life.  Brian Donlevy, who's reprising his title role from The Great McGinty, would play an advertising executive (Mickey Rooney's boss) in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini.