Film review: The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1943)

It being late in 2019 all sorts of "best of decade" lists are appearing.  One of them that I've seen recently was a "Best Comedy of the Decade" list.  It included films like Wreck-It Ralph, and had at the #1 spot What We Do In the Shadows, a film that I thing is very good, but at which I don't think I laughed once (I'm sure I smiled at "we're Werewolves not swearwolves").  Whereas this one actually had me laughing out loud at several places throughout.  It is, of course, a Preston Sturges film, and sadly missing from the box set I got for Xmas a while back, but it popped up on the Criterion Channel in pristine condition, and we watched it.  It could quite comfortably count as a Xmas movie, too, given that the climax happens at Christmas.  If you've been living under a rock and know nothing about it, the one thing you need to be aware of for context going in is this.  But the "miracle" is not really the point of most of the humor in the film (unless there's a double meaning to do with the miracle of Norval's good-natured-ness), which is a product of brilliant writing and exquisite slapstick performances from all concerned, but particularly Eddie Bracken as Norval,

Betty Hutton as Trudy Kockenlocker, and William Demarest as Constable Edmund Kockenlocker, widowed father to Trudy and her sharp-witted 14-year-old sister Emmy.

It's important not to give too much away, but the premise was shocking at the time and might be considered shocking for different reasons today (and is only carried off by the goodwill that the performers invoke in the viewers).  Essentially, Norval (an orphaned bank clerk) has carried a torch for Trudy since both were small children.  But Trudy is consumed with a sense of patriotic duty towards the servicemen stationed outside their small town, all about to set forth to fight the Axis in WWII.  She enthusiastically attends a dance that is to send them on their way, but can only get out of the house (her father was a soldier in WWI and knows what they are like) is to pretend to be going out with Norval to the pictures.  He is not at all happy with this charade (he feels he can't go to the dance because he has flunked the physical multiple times because of "the spots" (that appear before his eyes when he gets nervous)) but caves to her wiles and even lends her his car.  She is dancing away, drinking what she thinks is lemonade, when she clunks her head (on a glitter ball - which apparently were not invented in the Disco era).  Norval comes out of the triple-bill at about two in the morning and she isn't there to pick him up.  He falls asleep waiting outside the cinema only to be woken up by her crashing his already-battered car into the theater six hours later.  She has no memory of most of the night.  Of course her father, the constable, is not happy to see them come back at eight in the morning and has to be physically restrained by Emmy (who is apparently used to this).  Anyway, Trudy gradually remembers that she and several other girls all went off and married (apparently there were/are 24-hour registry offices in motels precisely to ensure men in uniform could marry women whenever the urge struck) the departing men in uniform.  Skirting round the Hays code, a visit to the doctor's confirms that marriage was not the only thing that happened to Trudy that night, as she is pregnant.  (See what I mean?  Comedy out of what looks very much like date rape?  The only exculpating factor is that a line uttered by a Sergeant seems to imply that the young men thought they were drinking lemonade too, so they were not the ones responsible for getting Trudy blotto.)  In others' hands this could be either a kitchen sink drama or a tragedy, but it is so deftly handled here that you barely feel sorry for Norval (Trudy does enough of that) or indeed Trudy (Norval does enough of that).  Shenanigans ensue, as Trudy clearly needs to be married to somebody when she starts to show, but (a) married under an assumed name herself, and (b) can't remember the name or even face of the man she married.  Norval hatches a plan to dress up as a soldier and marry her himself under the name she vaguely remembers (Ratzkiwatzki) so there will be a marriage certificate,

but his natural honesty torpedoes this plan and he gets arrested.  Will everything work out?  And what is the bookending device involving the governor of their midwestern state about?  Watch it and see - I think it's Preston Sturges's funniest film, which makes it one of the great comedies of all time.  I might insist we watch it  every Christmas.