(Preston Sturges/1944/USA)
An absolute gem here from Preston
Sturges which deals with heavyweight issues like unexpected pregnancy and
marriage of convenience with fast paced screwball comedy all the way. It is
relentlessly funny with the snappiest dialogue I’ve ever seen on a screen.
Eddie Bracken and Betty Hutton are both excellent in the main roles as Norval Jones
and Trudy Kockenlocker with some fine back up especially from William Demarest
as Trudy’s father. I reckon the Hays Office spent most of the film, much like
me, in stitches of laughter and forgot to bang a rejection stamp on it because
it is quite unbelievable how the blatant subject matter of casual sex and resulting
pregnancy got past them. It is also quite astonishing to think that Sturges wrote
the entire script on set as they were shooting; it is so incisively funny and
savagely cutting of social mores and well established perceptions of idyllic
small town life. By playing the humour big with lots of farce, slapstick and
rapid fire one liners The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek elicits a realism and
pathos that merits the subject matter in the first place and all the while
poking a finger in the eye of provincial America. It is without doubt a work of
casual genius.
(4/5)
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