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During World War II, Hollywood's patriotic duty was to shoot stirring dramas and good-hearted comedies that celebrated America's brave soldiers and honored their loyal, virtuous wives and girlfriends. Which goes a long way toward explaining why this delirious Preston Sturges farce, filmed in 1943 at the height of the war effort (and of its director's powers), was delayed for a year while Paramount executives wrestled with Sturges's irreverence: in
Morgan's Creek, the writer-director tweaked those stereotypes with his tale of Trudy Kockenlocker, a small-town girl who only wants to send our boys off with a smile. That she does, but she wakes up after an all-night party with vague memories of a dubious wedding and soon finds herself pregnant.
Trudy, played by the ebullient Betty Hutton, is wholesome, sexy, and something of a ditz, in contrast to Sturges's usual savvy heroines (represented instead by Trudy's teenaged younger sister, played by Diana Lynn). Trudy's savior is would-be boyfriend Norval, played to apoplectic perfection by the rubber-faced Eddie Bracken, who was never better than in this wide-eyed, pratfall-happy performance as the weary but loyal draft reject who stands by his girl. As Trudy's father, Sturges regular William Demarest likewise achieves a series of comic peaks as the exasperated and increasingly desperate Officer Kockenlocker.
Like Sturges's other Bracken-Demarest vehicle, the equally fine Hail, the Conquering Hero, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek was unique among wartime movies for its satirical sting and unblinking eye for hypocrisy on the home front. It's also enormous fun, a comedic romp that epitomizes Sturges's kinetic, high-speed style. --Sam Sutherland
Review
In 1944, with the restrictive Hays Code very much in effect, the mere fact that Preston Sturges was allowed to make The Miracle of Morgan's Creek was remarkable in itself. After all, a comedy about a girl who gets drunk at a party with a bunch of soldiers and wakes up the next morning hung over and pregnant, with no memory of who the guilty party might be (except that his name sounded like "Ratzywatzy"), hardly conformed to Hollywood's ideal of womanly virtue. But while the film's audacious content was out of the ordinary in its day, its lasting importance comes from the fact that it's a very, very funny movie. Sturges' superb ear for dialogue is in evidence throughout, as is his knack for bringing out the best in his cast: Betty Hutton gives the best and funniest performance of her career, while Eddie Bracken's work is rivaled only by his turn in Sturges' other 1944 masterpiece, Hail the Conquering Hero. If the premise seemed daring, Sturges gleefully heaped absurdity after absurdity upon it, to the point where even Norval and Trudy are barely able to keep track of their own hare-brained scheme to retain Trudy's good name (as well as that of Mr. Ratzywatzy, wherever he is). While the movie can be accused of playing Trudy's unwed pregnancy for laughs, she certainly seems painfully aware of the gravity of her situation, no matter how funny the circumstances it puts her through. And the scene between Trudy and Norval shortly after she's given birth is sweet and unexpectedly moving, as, after a genial assault on propriety, we're reminded in all sincerity of the simple power of love between two people. In Sturges' best movies, people do ridiculous things but somehow land on their feet; his characters rarely fell farther, or landed with more unexpected aplomb, than in The Miracle of Morgan's Creek. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
