BrianKoller's Full Review: Miracle of Morgan's Creek
Beginning in 1940, Preston Sturges made eight comedies with Paramount for which he served as both writer and director. He also produced the later films. The first seven films were both critically and commercially successful, with his hot streak (and Paramount career) finally ending with the troubled production of The Great Moment (1944).
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek is typical of Sturges' output. The Palm Beach Story has a better cast, and Sullivan's Travels has a better story. But it is still a good slapstick comedy, while not completely deserving of the high praise that it has received over the years.
Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) uses her sometime boyfriend Norval (Eddie Bracken) to attend a dance for war recruits about to be shipped overseas. A knock on the head results in Trudy becoming both married and pregnant. But she doesn't know the identity of her father/husband, although Norval is willing to do anything to extricate her character. Trudy has a belligerent, widowed father (William Demarest), and a meddlesome younger sister (Diana Lynn).
Bracken plays his schmuck role perfectly, with futile devotion to the sweet but manipulative Hutton. He stammers with excitement, and his projected nervousness fits well within Sturges' preference for exaggeration and slapstick. Hutton, Lynn, Bracken, and Demarest all seem several years older than their characters. The necessity of a happy ending for all concerned leads to a ridiculous separation of Bracken from his towering legal difficulties.
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek has been singled out as one of Sturges' most risky comedies, in that its plot elements might not pass the production code. Perhaps the extreme silliness of the comedy prevented anyone from taking seriously the film's underlying themes. While Hutton was an adult, her character was a minor. If her first marriage was fraudulent, then her unknown soldier Romeo could be guilty of statutory rape. Also, unwed mothers in American films from the 1940s are virtually unheard of.
However, this wasn't the only film where Sturges challenged the production code. In The Palm Beach Story, the heroine openly considers leaving her loving husband for a wealthy suitor. In Unfaithfully Yours, the hero plots to murder his faithful wife, and pin the crime on his secretary. But these films were all slapstick comedies. They did not have to follow the rules of crime dramas like Double Indemnity (1944), in which the guilty had to be appropriately punished.
More dubious is a recurring gag in The Miracle of Morgan's Creek. Demarest gets angry at his youngest daughter, whose character is about 14 years old. He tries to give her a vehement kick from behind, only to miss completely and land on his back, similar to Charlie Brown whiffing Lucy's football. If it isn't that funny watching a middle-aged man take a painful pratfall, imagine how unfunny it would be had he actually managed to viciously kick his teenaged daughter.
Bracken and Hutton appeared together in several other wartime films, all of them musicals. Bracken would play the lead in Sturges' Hail the Conquering Hero (1944). Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff have small roles, reprising their same starring characters from Sturges' The Great McGinty (1940). William Demarest was the only person to costar in all eight films that Sturges directed while with Paramount.
The film received an Oscar nomination in 1945 for Best Original Screenplay. In that category, Sturges had to compete with himself, as Hail the Conquering Hero was also nominated. Both films lost to Lamar Trotti's script for Wilson. (60/100)
Preston Sturges directs THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK about Trudy Kockenlocker Betty Hutton a party girl who wakes up one morning to find she's marrie...More at Family Video
A bank clerk gets in trouble after posing as the unknown GI father of his girlfriend's sextuplets. Directed by Preston Sturges.More at HotMovieSale.com
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