Governor McGinty receives a phone call from a distressed man, informing him about a bizarre story that is unfolding in Morgan Creek: teenager Trudy Kockenlocker participated in a farewell-party for American soldiers leaving for war, but the next morning she woke up and realized that she was so drunk she got married to one of them, but forgot his name or how he looks like. Worse still, she is pregnant. Trudy tells this to her 14-year old sister Emmy, but hides it from her father. Trudy thus asks the guy who was in love with her all these years, Norval, to marry her to conceal the scandal. She dresses Norval as a soldier and tries to marry him under a fake name so that she can get divorced through the marriage certificate, but Norval is arrested for impersonating a soldier. When he tries to escape from jail, things get even worse for him. On Christmas, Trudy gives birth to six boys, while McGinty arranges for Norval to get released so that the two can be a good couple.
Even for Preston Sturges, this is one of the most insane and audacious comedies from the Hays Code era, a satire that dances on thin ice of the allowed themes at that time, yet manages to still pull it off. The joke premise of a girl who was so drunk she forgot whom she married the previous night was so influential that it was copied a thousand times in movies or TV shows (a similar concept was even used again is Sturges own later film "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock") and offered huge potentials for a screwball comedy, with jokes ranging from witty dialogues ("I don't believe it!" - "Well, nobody asked you!") up to pure physical sight gags (one of the most howlingly funny scenes is the wacky stunt in which the 14-year old Emmy scorns her father that he should be "more rafined" and then turns around to walk away, but her dad is so angry at that remark that he swings his foot to kick her butt, but slips and falls down, loosing his shoe). Sturges rises to the occasion in this story, poking fun at everything and everyone, from conservative institutions up to small town mentality, and in a sheer stroke of genius even has his old Governor McGinty back from his film "The Great McGinty" as the framework of the story. The range of burlesque jokes is simply astounding, some of which are just plain crazy and batty, yet one has to give him credit for at least having the courage for trying them out: near the end, in a weird clip, the film makes fun of the scandal of Morgan Creek getting so out of hand that it even switches to a military camp where Hitler gets informed about the birth of the sextuplet babies, only for the newspaper to announce the headline: "Hitler demands a recount!" The best joke in the entire film is probably the sequence in which the clumsy Norval is trying to hint to Trudy's father (brilliant William Demarest) that he wants to propose his daughter, but dad is cleaning his gun and accidentally fires pass him. Norval then quietly walks through the glass door (!) and towards Trudy, exchanging a dialogue which is comedy gold ("What was that gunshot about?" - "It was just your father. He was practicing"). The ending seems slightly too chaotic and sloppy, ruining somewhat the impression, yet "The Miracle of Morgan Creek" is still a fine screwball comedy that works thanks to its anarchic humor.
Grade;+++
Even for Preston Sturges, this is one of the most insane and audacious comedies from the Hays Code era, a satire that dances on thin ice of the allowed themes at that time, yet manages to still pull it off. The joke premise of a girl who was so drunk she forgot whom she married the previous night was so influential that it was copied a thousand times in movies or TV shows (a similar concept was even used again is Sturges own later film "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock") and offered huge potentials for a screwball comedy, with jokes ranging from witty dialogues ("I don't believe it!" - "Well, nobody asked you!") up to pure physical sight gags (one of the most howlingly funny scenes is the wacky stunt in which the 14-year old Emmy scorns her father that he should be "more rafined" and then turns around to walk away, but her dad is so angry at that remark that he swings his foot to kick her butt, but slips and falls down, loosing his shoe). Sturges rises to the occasion in this story, poking fun at everything and everyone, from conservative institutions up to small town mentality, and in a sheer stroke of genius even has his old Governor McGinty back from his film "The Great McGinty" as the framework of the story. The range of burlesque jokes is simply astounding, some of which are just plain crazy and batty, yet one has to give him credit for at least having the courage for trying them out: near the end, in a weird clip, the film makes fun of the scandal of Morgan Creek getting so out of hand that it even switches to a military camp where Hitler gets informed about the birth of the sextuplet babies, only for the newspaper to announce the headline: "Hitler demands a recount!" The best joke in the entire film is probably the sequence in which the clumsy Norval is trying to hint to Trudy's father (brilliant William Demarest) that he wants to propose his daughter, but dad is cleaning his gun and accidentally fires pass him. Norval then quietly walks through the glass door (!) and towards Trudy, exchanging a dialogue which is comedy gold ("What was that gunshot about?" - "It was just your father. He was practicing"). The ending seems slightly too chaotic and sloppy, ruining somewhat the impression, yet "The Miracle of Morgan Creek" is still a fine screwball comedy that works thanks to its anarchic humor.
Grade;+++
No comments:
Post a Comment