THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK (1944)

In the small town of Morgan's Creek, Trudy Kockenlocker goes to a farewell party to a bunch of soldiers. While dancing she hits her head on a disco ball and is knocked silly. The next morning she wakes up at home feeling like Hell, but that's just the beginning of it: she's pregnant and doesn't even know who the father is! Remember this is 1944! All she can remember is she thinks she married some guy named "Ratzkiwatzki" or something like that. Devastated by this news she doesn't know what to do so she devises a plan to quickly marry Norval Jones, who's been in love with her since he was a fetus, but when she sees how deeply he's in love she can't trick him like that so...well, I've already told you too much, but take my word for is this movie is hilarious. The first time I saw it I literally laughed until I was crying and my sides hurt so bad I thought I was going to puke.

From a filmmaker's standpoint TMOMC is notable for some great long shots, especially Trudy and Norval's walk when she tell him she's pregnant. It's nearly 4 minutes long and physically covers a lot of ground, but the audience probably never notices it because their too busy laughing at Norval's constant screaming. Also notice how those long scenes are only during the first half of the movie, later on as the excitement grows the shots become shorter and shorter, not to mention a lot more people show up until you have some great Sturges crowd scenes where you have five people talking at once and it's all funny.

I love this movie and cannot say enough things about it. Brilliant script and direction by a true Hollywood master and the acting! How did Eddie Bracken not get at least nominated for an Oscar for his role here? He was hilarious. And lets not forget Sturges normal actors...of his 38 frequent actors 22 were here. Most notable was William Demarest as Trudy's gruff father, Constable Edmund Kockenlocker.

I would really like to know if it's even possible for Hollywood to make a movie like this anymore? Made back in 1944 the story talks nonstop about sex and marriage, but yet it's completely clean language-wise and without any gross-out humor. Everything was done so subtly and so full of satire that it somehow got passed the Hays Office! I love crude humor as much as the next person, but I would be thrilled beyond belief if somebody started making clean screwball comedies like this today. Some of the comedies by Howard Hawks, Preston Sturges, Jack Conway, Frank Capra and Leo McCarey were so rich that I can watch them countless times and never get bored.  Highly recommended.

Funny story: In a interview with Eddie Bracken he said that he came up with the idea of Norval walking through the screen door and didn't tell Sturges, he just did it.  Preston was on the camera and started laughing so hard he actually fell out of his seat!

HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO (1944)

HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO is one of the funniest screwball ensemble comedies of all time. It's also one of the best cinematic examples of the "snowball effect" where a small action has consequences that get bigger and bigger until it's nearly out of control.

Eddie Bracken grew up in a small town in the shadow of his late father who was a great war hero who died in the field of battle the day Eddie was born. Eddie's wanted nothing more in his life than to join the Marines. When he gets old enough he joins, but is then 4-F'd for "chronic hay fever". That was over a year ago and ever since he's been working in a shipyard too embarrassed to return home or even tell his mother. One night he's drowning his sorrows in a bar when in walk 6 broke Marines on leave. He buys them a round of drinks and a conversation strikes up. Before you know it the Marines have concocted a plan to get him home to his mother: dress him up as a war hero and escort him home, then after a few days they leave and he returns to civilian life...that's not the best plan ever, but their hearts are bigger than their brains. The next day in the sober sunlight their plan doesn't sound so great when the train arrives in town and not only is Eddie's mother there, but the entire town and not one but four marching bands all playing different songs at once! And that's just the start of the snowball! By the end of the day the town's folk are marching up and down the street with signs and torches loudly singing songs about how they want Eddie to be the new mayor! They also burned the mortgage note on his mother's house and are taking donations to erect a statue of him in the town square. To complicate matters even worse his ex-girlfriend (who still loves him) is now engaged to the current mayor's son. From beginning to end the entire thing is just a frenzy of people running around like mad, talking and shouting over each other. It's hilarious and even at moments very touching.

All of the films Preston Sturges wrote and directed between 1941 and 1944 were masterpieces. Most of the credit goes to Sturges and his amazing scripts, but we can't forget Sturges regular actors who appeared in all of his films during this period (very useful chart here). Of his 38 regulars 22 starred in this film.

I can't recommend this movie enough. I've seen it dozens of times and one of the things I like to do now to keep it fresh is pick out one actor and just watch them the entire time whether they're speaking or not. I think the best to watch is Ella Raines, mainly because she's beautiful, but also because her reactions all of the crazy stuff stuff going on around her is priceless. One question I do have that I doubt will ever get answered is: during Mayor Noble's speech at the train station if you watch Ella's character she's holding a bouquet of "del-fuminimums". During the madness she turns a few times and each time the tip of the flowers rubs Franklin Pandborn's face. Was that planned or did it just happen? Either way Franklin plays it smooth and his facial expressions are amusing.

Every time Eddie sneezes I can't help but think of "Spots! Spots!" from THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK.

THE LADY EVE (1941)

[Update 11/14/2021: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

With so many great films under his belt it's hard to pick my favorite Preston Sturges film, but if I had to narrow it down to one I would choose THE LADY EVE. It's not as screwball as THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK or HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO, that's not to say there isn't plenty of laughs, but he thing that pushes it above his other films is the intelligence of the script and the impressive performances by the leads, especially Barbara Stanwyck.  She's great!  Not only does she play two completely different characters, but one of them is living a lie, so that adds an entirely new level to her performance.

In the opening scenes she plays a card shark who's out to ripoff the innocent and naive Henry Fonda, but even though it's not spoken you can tell just by looking at her eyes that she's quickly falling in love with him. Or is that part of her act? I used to think that, but the line she says at 11:38 indicates that she's thinking about him when he's old, so I believe that shows that she's already fallen in love with him.

Anyway, I'm just rambling. I don't want to give any more of the plot away than I already have, but just take my word for it: if you like classic cinema, especially screwball romances, then you're gonna love this movie! I give it my highest recommendation.  Maybe one day when I'm smarter I'll come back and write a real review.