The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944)

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
Written and Directed by Preston Sturges
1944/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant Video

[box] Norval Jones: Ignatz Ra-ra-ratzkywatzky. That – that fits alright.

Trudy Kockenlocker: Oh, phooey! [/box]

Preston Sturges, how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways …

Dippy teenager Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) is the peppiest girl in town with a weakness for servicemen.  She lives with her widower father Edmund (William Demerest), the Town Constable, and younger sister Emmy (Diana Lynn), a practical sort who is handy with the wisecracks.  Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken) has been in love with Trudy since grade school.  His greatest regret is that he has been declared 4-F by every branch of the military for high blood pressure.  When Norval gets excited or nervous he sees “spots.”

When her father refuses to let her go to a dance for servicemen about to go overseas, Trudy cons Norval into “taking her to the movies”.  She asks him to wait and then departs in his car to the dance.  She doesn’t return until 8 a.m.  By then she has had a few too many “lemonades”.  When Norval takes her home, her father assumes the worst.

Trudy has only hazy memories of her evening.  Gradually, she dimly remembers getting married to someone with a funny name, something like “Radzkiwadzki”.  She used a false name at the ceremony and has no proof of anything.  Later, a positive pregnancy test gives her all the proof she needs.

Norval may be the answer to her prayers.  But, after he proposes, she can’t go through with it and develops a true affection for him.  Despite everything, Norman is true blue and the two cook up a ridiculous scheme to get a marriage certificate in the names of Trudy Kockenlocker and Ignatz Radzkiwadzki so they can divorce and remarry under their right names.  Needless to say, the course of true love never did run smooth.  Sturges ties the whole thing up with a happy ending that must be seen to be believed.   With Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff reprising their roles as The Governor and The Boss from The Great McGintey in the framing sequences and a host of Sturges regulars.

This movie is one gag after another.  If you didn’t like the last pratfall, wait 10 seconds and you will get a brilliant one-liner.  The performances are superb.  I especially like Eddie Bracken and I’m not big on comic stutterers.  Diana Lynn is a calm of deadpan humor in the hurricane of hysteria that surrounds her.  Sturges might have made better pictures but he never made a funnier one.  Highly recommended.

Preston Sturges was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay.

Trailer