by Tony d’Ambra
Small town 40s America. Picket fences, porches, and quiet tree-lined streets. Places with names like Bedford Falls and Morgans Creek. Wise mothers, irascible strict fathers with hearts of gold, dizzy older sisters on the cusp of womanhood, spunky older-than-their-years younger sisters, and nerdy suitors. Movie-houses and jalopies. Record-stores and dances at the country-club. Thoroughly integrated foreigners (but no black faces).
Myth or reality? A dream or the place where we would have wanted to grow-up? Fantasy or fact? Either way, Preston Sturges stood ready to lampoon. Most say savagely, I say gently. We all say brilliantly.
Frankly, I can’t figure how this movie didn’t rank higher in this countdown. Fast-paced, witty, over-the-top, irreverent, and a barrel of laughs. What else do you want from a comedy? Audiences in 1944 must have been more than satisfied: The Miracle of Morgans Creek was the biggest grossing movie of the year.
The scenario for 1944 was a humdinger. Trudy Kockenlocker – love that name! – connives to get her nerdy suitor Norval – yes! - to fool her Dad so that she can attend a dance party for local servicemen leaving for the war - without him and borrow his car! – while he sits out a triple-feature at the movies. She gets drunk on spiked lemonade, hits her head on a ceiling lamp during some wild dancing, and turns up at 8am outside the theatre. She remembers little of what went on until the early hours – except getting married to a GI whose name sounded like Ratzkiwatzki? Later she learns she is pregnant. Breen from the Hays Office, who by all accounts was sympathetic, let it through, though changes were needed to get a suitable rating; such as Trudy being married before consummation, and that it all happened after a bump on the head.
The story is nicely framed as a flashback, with a canny segue featuring the State Governor and ‘The Boss’, two characters reprised from Sturges’ 1940 film about political corruption, The Great McGinty (which earned Sturges his only Oscar for the screenplay). The action kicks off from the first frame as two old guys frantically enter the local newspaper office yelling to hold the presses. They scramble for a phone and ring the State Governor with a BIG story – we don’t find out what the fuss is about until the end. The titles appear with the old fellas yelling and gesticulating madly regardless. “I started the whole thing…”
We are soon introduced to the Kockenlocker ménage. A happy wacky household you would love as your neighbours. Trudy, her grumpy old widower Dad who is the town cop, and 14yo sister Emmy. Trudy works in a record-store and is still a ‘minor’ – under 21 in those days. Officer Kockenlocker is played by Sturges regular William Demarest; the role is his metier, melding perfect timing with pratfalls and exquisite lines like “Tell your sister the house ain’t paid for, will you?” to Emmy, when the house starts a-trembling as upstairs in her excitement Trudy kicks up a storm getting ready for the fateful dance. Emmy retorts: “She knows that, Papa. You tell her every day.” Diana Lynn is perfectly cast as Emmy. Precocious and cute as a button, she shines and shines. Betty Hutton is great as Trudy, imparting a fresh dizzy innocence to the shenanigans. Her tipsy inebriation when she turns up late at the movie theatre after that night of hanky-panky is a comic delight, and Eddie Bracken as the put-upon Norval is the perfect foil.
Norval’s car is the worse-for-wear after Trudy’s night on the tiles:
- You’ve been drinking
- Who’s been drinking? I never had a drink in my life! How dare you insinuate I’ve been drinking?
- You certainly don’t get what you’ve got on lemonade.
- I certainly did.
- All right.
- What have you been using on my car, a pickaxe?
- Is this your car? I was wondering where I found this old jalopy.
Norval, the prototypical nerd is an orphan who boards with a local lawyer and his wife. He has been sweet on Trudy since they were little kids and works in a bank to “get rich and to buy her things someday”. With the pregnancy a reality to be dealt with, wily Emmy hatches a scheme to wangle Norval into what he wants anyway: marrying Trudy and making the coming confinement legit. Suffice to say nothing goes to plan.
Sturges started the picture with only a handful of pages from the uncompleted script, writing at night for the next day’s shooting, and did not have the ending until the eleventh hour. The result is a truly engaging story with razor wit, deft characterisations, and frantically funny sight gags, with just enough slapstick to hold off any resistance from the viewer. He satirizes everything and everyone, from opportunistic politicians to marriage, motherhood, and romance. Even the army and the war don’t escape. A newspaper headline screams “Hitler Demands a Recount” after the ‘miracle’ is revealed, and a new caring policy for MPs uses ‘psycholology’ (sic) to handle wayward men in uniform.
Sturges may pillory his characters but deep down he has a soft affection for them. Decency is rewarded and only hypocrisy and cant punished. There is a wonderful scene at the end at the local fire station where the town worthies are discussing Norval’s fate – he is in the local jail – don’t ask! It turns into a melee after Kockenlocker snr tries unsuccessfully to take a swipe at the local bank president, who is responsible for Norval’s arrest. This sequence, like other crowded scenes in the film, is shot in medium close-up, giving it all an hysterical urgency. Emmy disturbs proceedings by telling her Dad a certain event is imminent! All rush for the staircase down to the garage, but Kockenlocker snr takes the fast way down the firemen’s pole. Inexplicably he stalls once he hits the ground – what is he waiting for? Waiting for the bank president – so he can bop him!
The framing scenes are beautifully handled with the situation in the Governor’s office becoming ever more chaotic as the news unfolds and lackeys begin to fill the room – again tightly framed by the camera. The lightning-fast repartee of the Governor and his chief aide are brilliantly delivered in long takes. Brian Donlevy as Governor McGinty and Akim Tamiroff as “The Boss” are an awesome comic team:
- You mean he’s [Norval] still in jail, you dumb blockhead?
- Yes.
- Well, get him out.
- But how can I, Mr. Governor, with all those charges against him?
- By dropping those charges, you dumb cluck. You wealhead!
- Now, get me that banker on the phone.
- His charter is cancelled!
- And the justice of the peace!
- His license is revoked and his motel is condemned.
…
- There’s only one thing more, Mr. Governor, the marriage.
- What’s the matter with her marriage?
- She’s married to Norval Jones. She always has been.
- The guy married them, didn’t he?
- The boy signed his right name, didn’t he?
- But he gave his name as Ratzkiwatzki.
- He was trying to say Jones. He stuttered.
- What are you looking for, needles in a haystack?
- Then how about the first Ratzkiwatzki?
- He’s annulled.
- Who annulled him?
- The judge, who do you suppose?
- Retroactive. Get Judge Mendoza on the phone.
- I’m getting it.
- He’s out of the picture.
- He was never in it.
- Get me those guys on the phone.
- Who do they think they are, anyway? Hello, Mendoza.
All’s well that ends well…
How Miracle at Morgan’s Creek made the Top 100:
Pierre de Plume No. 11
Bobby McCartney No. 23
Bobby Jopsson No. 26
R.D. Finch No. 41
Jon Warner No. 48
Allan Fish No. 58
Pat Perry No. 58
Tony–
You really paint a vivid and descriptive picture of the film’s setting, and how audiences have perceived Sturges’ incomparable brand of comedy, which as you summarily note is brilliant no matter how one regards the methods and extent. You are right to lament the relatively low placement of this comedy classic, though readers may yet be seeing more of this icon of the cinema. Fast-moving and satirical, MORGAN’S CREEK may not be on the level of SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS and THE LADY EVE, but it’s still far ahead of most comedies of the war period. At the time of the film’s release many thought some of the names bordered on bad taste (like Trudy Kockenlocker) but it’s all part of Sturges’ outrageous barbing. The film boasts some splendid slapstick and it’s smuttiness sets it apart from the more sophisticated comedy of some of the director’s other films, but it’s also what sets it apart by way of originality. Sturges brilliantly lampoons the small town mentality in his visual conscription of crowds. Eddie Bracken is terrific, but so is the entire cast. You cover the themes superbly, the choice of dialogue is dead-on, and you have given readers a stupendous opening salvo in the comedy countdown!
Thanks Sam! Also for the opportunity to participate in the ballot and to make a modest contribution to the Countdown.
Perhaps it is more a matter of temperament rather than taste, but “smuttiness” may be a harsh descriptor. The scenario no doubt was played out for real for many young woman at the time, for better or for worse, and Sturges is not so much lampooning the mess Trudy gets herself into, but the narrow-mindedness that finds her predicament ‘smutty’. On the other hand, smut has an honourable history. Rabelaisian may be a more apt label, and if we go back to Athens in 411BC, when Aristophanes’ Lysistrata was first performed, the ‘burden’ of the sex-starved males was clearly on display…
I think it’s only a bit smutty if you try to explain it to someone. As in “hey there’s this movie from the 40′s where this girl gets knocked up and she doesn’t know who the father is”. In actuality I think it doesn’t quite play like that. I mean she was married! If she wasn’t then I think we would have more smutty material here.
Absolutely Tony and Jon, I agree with and appreciate this delineation on “smut.”
That’s not to say it’s not devilishly crafty. I think there is a bit of “danger” to the script…a bit of, oh I don’t know, irresponsible naughtiness on display? I’m not quite sure how to put it, but it’s there.
Jon, I just read what Pauline Kael said about the film in her “5001 Nights at the Movies.” She seems to accept but yet accuse American viewers simultaneously when she asserts: “This is one of Preston Sturges’s surreal-slapstick-satire-conniption-fit comedies, and part of our great crude heritage.”
Haha! That’s funny Sam. Yeah maybe crude is a better word than smut? I was just thinking there are some things that The Hangover borrows from this film, as far as the blacking out and not remembering what happened the night before. I wonder if the film was viewed in the same way back then as people view The Hangover type films now. Meaning the crude aspect.
I bet at the time of release Jon, it was seen as a Hangover-type film, as 40′s audiences didn’t immediately see the artistic that subsequent generations so glowingly asserted.
I also don’t take ‘smutty’ as a loaded negative word (smut can be as artful as anything else), but it does often have that connotation. Which, in this film so intent on lambasting those sort of moral delineations, is quite ironic no?
Completely agree with jamieru.
Jamie,
I don’t think we’re saying Smut can’t be art. We’re questioning whether this film is smutty. I’m not quite so sure I would call it smutty, that’s all.
Oh yeah, I don’t think you guys were saying that. I wanted to make more a point on the usual connotation of ‘smut’ introduced by Tony (and I don’t think originally intended by Sam).
Sorry Sam if I didn’t properly grasp what you were saying. I suspected as much. But I am glad there has been such a fruitful discussion
Tony, this certainly ranked a good deal higher on my own ballot. This is my favorite Preston Sturges movie after “Sullivan’s Travels” and “The Palm Beach Story.” I love it when you write, “Sturges may pillory his characters but deep down he has a soft affection for them. Decency is rewarded and only hypocrisy and cant punished.” This is a good distillation of the ethos of the Sturges brand of comedy. He’s never mean-spirited, but neither is he blind to human weakness. In fact, these weaknesses are the source of the foibles that lead to his comic situations.
Betty Hutton can sometimes be too much, but here the gravity of her character’s situation seems to rein in her tendency to mania. In contrast, Diana Lynn seems precociously level-headed, a nice contrast to the impulsive Trudy. Of all William Demarest’s memorable performances for Sturges, this is my favorite, a classic study in comic frustration in the manner of W. C. Fields. I quite liked Brian Donlevy too, also Raymond Walburn at his blowhard best.
Great contribution and thanks RD! Yes, Hutton and Bracken are best in small doses, and this underlines the craft underlying the wonderful jalopy scene in front of the movie theater. On the other hand, I never get enough of Lynn who is so beguiling as Emmy.
WONDERFUL FILM!!!!
While this is not my favorite of Sturges’ films (I reserve my affections for THE LADY EVE), I will say that the worst films written and directed by him are, usually, better than most film-makers best work.
Great film to start the count with. Tony, you really hit all the nails on the head with this wonderfully written and completely loving essay. Your admiration for this movie is felt within every sentence.
Thanks Dennis. I also prefer The Lady Eve, but this Sturges effort comes a close second.
Are we going to have after each review the list of who put the film and in what position?
The mind boggles
Jaimie, though we did this in the musical countdown, it seems implausible to do it this time around, as there were 32 voters, as opposed to just 7 the last time, and would require endless listing. If for example a film appeared on every ballot as is the case with a number of films, we would need to prepare a list of 32 voters. This would sadly take away from the review itself, and would be extraordinarily time-consuming. I’d love to be able to do it Jaimie, but this time around it’s too difficult.
I would like to know who had it at the highest placement on their ballot. Mine was at 48.
Jon, I will investigate that inquiry today.
I have great news for everyone. Johnny-on-the-spot Maurizio Roca has volunteered to compile the listings that Jaimie and Jon -and no doubt others- would love to see. He now has all 32 ballots in his possession and will provide the individual voting stats for all future essays.
Hail Maurizio for this!
Yes Hail Maurizio! Fantastic! Can’t wait to see the ongoing ballot placings.
“Myth or reality? A dream or the place where we would have wanted to grow-up? Fantasy or fact? Either way, Preston Sturges stood ready to lampoon. Most say savagely, I say gently. We all say brilliantly.”
Fantastic stuff Tony and you get this countdown off to a roaring start. I love this film. I think it’s incredibly subversive stuff and one of Sturges’s greatest works and one of his funniest. I too am wondering how this did not make it higher into the countdown. I actually had it on my ballot at number 48. Maybe it gets the shaft as it has not quite had the treatment as other Sturges works like Sullivan’s Travels or The Lady Eve which have been in Criterion Editions. I think it’s his third best film behind those two, but that’s not to say it’s any less of a comedy. In fact it may be out and out the funniest he ever made as far as belly laughs. Close call though. Demarest is absolutely perfect here as he always is in a Sturges film. He always seems to get Sturges’s intent. His line delivery is amazing.
Thanks Jon. In terms of actual laughs per minute, MMC is tops for me, but the wit and vivacity of the sly humor of The Lady Eve trumps it – and the presence of Barbara Stanwyck makes it a delight. The sexual innuendo in Eve is even more outrageous as it is all pre-marital. In a sense, it is as cheeky as any pre-coder, and you have to wonder what they did to Breen to get that one through!
Tony -
A wondeful post that perfectly captures the film and Sturges’ genius. In reading, I felt I was seeing the film all over again.
Thanks Pat! Great to have that kind of response.
A great film that’s a real ‘skewer-er’, as it seems to be (wonderfully) skewering virtually every moral of this or any day. He, and I think WC Fields are the great exhibitors of a time when comedy was used used to lampoon the hypocrisies of the day, a tool that should have never left (mainstream) comedic cinema. The treatment of society that is colliding with a baby crazy syndrome while also having a burgeoning military industrial complex (a term not even invented yet in Sturges’ time!) is just to die for.
Gotta think this film is so low for two reasons; one, many probably omitted it because they’ve never seen it, or two, the genius of Preston Sturges split the vote with about a half dozen of his other works. Nice work Tony on a very daunting challenge of such a great film.
Thanks Jamie. The baton I think was taken by the Italians in the 1950s and early 60s with directors like Monicelli and Germi, and to a lesser extent by the French in the late 60s and early 70s. I was the only one to vote for Themroc!
Even though I admittedly left this one off of my own ballot in favor of other Sturges classics, I do love the zany antics of this film. I agree with RD Finch that Demarest was never better than as Constable Kockenlocker (Lord, that name), and I’m glad you highlighted Diana Lynn’s performance–she’s one of my favorite “kid sister” stars from that period, and is a bright spot in several cute comedies (The Major and the Minor, The Bride Wore Boots). While I much prefer Eddie Bracken in his other 1944 performance for Sturges (Hail the Conquering Hero), he and Hutton are nonetheless a marvelous pair.
Excellent post to kick off the countdown, Tony!
Thanks Brandie. Diana Lynn made the picture for me. She hits the spot in so many ways. I must admit to a certain nostalgia here. Emmy is the sister I never had, and as a father I think Sturges captured the father/daughter dynamic perfectly – particularly those early teen years when she is getting to know her own mind but still young enough to want to sit on your lap.
Tony, I tip my cap to you Sir, this is a marvelous opening statement in the countdown of laughter. Like a number of others on this forum, I have strong feelings for this film and for just about everything Sturges has done. In recent years I have taken a special liking to Unfaithfully Yours. The ‘Kockenlocker’ name rivals W.C. Fields with ‘Egbert Souse’ (souse) in zaniness, though the misanthrope is also famous for his writing pen name Mahatma Kane Jeeves. I love the way you examine the humanity behind all the wildness.
Thanks Peter. The family name is a gem, and in its comic absurdity points to the need for a degree of caricature to shape a comedy, but at the same time revealing Sturges’ real affection for the simple and joyful eccentricities of family life.
Sturges’ incisive satire effectively pokes fun because he does care for his characters. On this I do agree.
Nothing is sacred to Sturges, and at a time when conventions and rampant patriotism were at an all-time high, it’s appropriate to bring out the sword. This is a terrific review that manages to do what few reviews do it brings the screenplay into visual and audio focus.
Thank you Frank. And Sturges rapier is razor sharp!
I’ll come back to this thread when I have more time — but want agree with the notion that this film deserves higher than #100. One of the very best film comedies of all time IMO.
If this film were the only Sturges to appear on the countdown, I would be petitioning the voting committee! But as I know others will appear I can only surmise that what happened here was the classic example of split voting. I join with many others in congratulating Tony d’Ambra on igniting the laughter quotient and giving the site a flying start to the project. I know most would have “The Lady Eve” and “Sullivan’s Travels” as their favorite Sturges, but “Miracle” is within a stone’s throw.
Thanks David. I only wish I had the wit of Sturges! Imagine if he had written movie reviews. Apparently he personally replied to fan and not-a-fan mail with the same savage wit.
Tony – The word picture you painted so beautifully in the opening paragraph makes me think of Norman Rockwell. Loved your post – thank you!
Strange, if someone made me think of Norman Rockwell I’d become quite bothered. To each his own.
jamie, the point and the problem with Rockwell is, yeah, he probably had to paint Nixon to at least make him look distinguished and statesmanlike, at least to the Post editors. He was a hireling all his career and painted to suit. I look back at my old collection of Posts sometimes and they really are horrible in their banality, their sexism (nearly every cartoon is about nagging wives), etc. If the ultimate point is that Sturges was skewering a Saturday Evening Post view of America that’d be just about indisputable. For what it’s worth, Rockwell’s civil-rights paintings come after he left the Post for Look, where he could do more controversial interior art but rarely if ever got the cover. And that takes this tangent about as far as it can go.
The question then inevitably becomes of Rockwell’s ethics: were they for sale, meaning he painted whatever he was paid too? It’s realistic in the world of for-hire illustration (I understand the real world of designers and illustrators enough as I’m employed as such) for this to be the case, but it certainly negates the opinion of him as an ‘artist’ I’d think. Either way, yes lets move on. I just am boggled every time I come across people who view Rockwell favorably for this exact reason that’s all…
I rather like Norman Rockwell myself (especially the Wee Gillis series) if I might say so, but I agree that it is individual perception and taste.
Who needs Norman Rockwell’s phoniness when you have the reality of Jack Levine? He’s a much better painter to boot.
Levine is great for sure, I don’t argue that, as his art in the social sector is extraordinary, but for the purposes of visualizing Sturges I feel the Rockwell simile is a sound one.
Except that, and this film shows it in abundance, Sturges probably would have thought Rockwell as big a phony as I do. Capra’s a better comparison for Rockwell’s version of America (or even Ford’s contemporary set pieces), Sturges isn’t. They’re virtual ideological opposites.
In fact, oddly enough, I found this online (from a brief description on this exact film from a scheduled retrospective of Sturges many great films):
Smitten by men in uniform, small-town girl Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) gets drunk at a soldier’s ball. When she wakes up she’s not only married to someone she can’t remember who’s now on his way overseas, but she’s pregnant to boot. Writer/director Preston Sturges, perhaps Hollywood’s greatest satirist, deals scathingly with the hypocrisies of soldier worship and Norman Rockwell America in his most no-holds-barred picture. Sturges regulars Eddie Bracken and William Demarest also star.
He may be using Rockwell iconography and imagery, but his messages to gleam from these couldn’t be further from Rockwell’s points.
For some reason….and I don’t know what’s happening to me….I agree with Jamie. I think Sturges is lampooning the “Rockwellian” existence. I think that’s what he’s poking at. So, yes this film brings up that aspect, but only in the satire angle.
Yes Jamie and you found a nice quote. I think it’s fairly obvious all this Rockwell business is what Sturges wants to subvert.
Jon, welcome to the dark side.
And believe me I’m not trying to deride Norman Rockwell’s work. We’re talking about what this film is doing. It’s fairly clear what this film is doing, IMHO.
Well all good points, in the end confirming the broaching of Rockwell in a comparative sense, even if the comparison is one of barbing.
And like that you’re off my team. I certainly am deriding his work, lol.
OK Sam, that’s fair (and accurate).
re: Norman Rockwell — just checking to see if everyone is on the same page on the fact that he was a political liberal however self-consciously bourgeois his aesthetic sense was. The politics and the aesthetics aren’t incompatible, and the former may have fostered a certain idealization of common people that satirists like Sturges would pounce upon.
Rockwell wasn’t really a liberal though, he called himself one while he held (and painted) many conservative idea(l)s. This is a rather common phenomenon in humans, thinking there are A (and ‘A’ can be ‘political affiliation’, ‘emotional temperament’, ‘physical appearance’ etc. Virtually any objective trait that can be defined subjectively) when they are actually B (or B with only a small smidgeon of A).
And, his voting record bears this out (from a CNN piece): “But when approached by reporters about his political affiliation, Rockwell always claimed to be an independent voter.
And his record seems to back it up.
In 1948, he cast his ballot for Socialist presidential candidate Norman Thomas. In later years, he voted for Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, whom he painted for The Saturday Evening Post.”
It’s always important to note, to me at least, that what an artist says from their mouth isn’t half as important as what they say in their art. Look at Rockwell’s art, even when socially liberal, it isn’t diverse or contemplative of political nuance.
Haha Jamie! Didn’t last long did it? I’m more interested in the politics of this film than in deriding Rockwell. I don’t feel like shooting at a sitting duck. It’s too easy.
I think this discussion though just shows how brilliant this film is and how it probably deserves a much higher ranking. I mean ripping on Rockwell’s America in the midst of it? Now that’s comedy with meat to it. I was originally thinking that Sullivan’s Travels was Sturges more pointed film…..but now I’m wondering if this one is even moreso.
Jon–I just received an e mail not more than ten minutes ago from Allan, who said the #100 placement for this film was “criminally low.”
Still I am at least grateful it made it and we have it here to discuss.
But yeah, everyone is saying the same thing.
Yep Sam’s right and besides, those numbers, like the man behind the curtain in a favorite of cinema (hint, hint Jon and Sam!) that is also Rockwell-like terrible, shouldn’t be paid attention to. They’re arbitrary to the pieces and the discussions they prompt.
Hahahaha I hear ya!
jamie, it sounds like you’re thinking in essentially cultural rather than political (=partisan) terms when you invoke Rockwell and I have no problem with that. For the record, it was part of his job at the Post to paint the presidential candidates, so he painted Adlai Stevenson as well as Ike in 1956, just as he did both Nixon and Kennedy in 1960. Of course, he would not have been required, nor would he most likely have been allowed, to paint Norman Thomas in 1948. I tend to think of Rockwell as “liberal” because of his civil-rights paintings of the Sixties, but to be objective about it that only makes him as liberal as Charlton Heston was at the time.
Yeah the point of him painting a republican didn’t say anything about affiliation (and I understand your point as it was something he did for every president), but the vote he cast there did.
Or, we could analyze picture planes and symbolism. Yes, Rockwell had to paint Richard Nixon, but did he have to paint him so saintly and dignified in his thoughtful lean? Yes, Rockwell achieved a remarkable likeness there, but it’s about as far from the truth as you can get of its sitter. That’s the essence of his (Rockwell’s) career right there.
Jamie,
Haha! I love how you’re able to insert your typical derision of The Wizard of Oz in a random comment such as this! You are a wonder, and at the top of your game….and we’re only just starting this countdown!
Hey Laurie. Thanks. Yes Rockwell does certainly come to mind. Not being American I can keep my distance from his work, but I do have a certain sympathy. I think with him there is always an element of truth that hooks you – a shared memory, nostalgia for a simpler past, or a just a desire for that peace we rarely find. Sturges at bottom I think hankers for the same honest simplicity but of course demands that it is genuine. Apparently the scenario of Trudy using Norval to get to the dance is based on an event from Sturges’ own adolescence.
Very nice piece. ‘Morgan’s Creek’ is about the only film in which Betty Hutton is bearable.
C’mon Mark, you had to like her in ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, no? Ha!
Yeah, that and ‘The Greatest Show On Earth’. Heh-heh.
PS: I think ‘Miracle’ is a satire of misplaced American enthusiasms and energies, and we all know where that can tragically lead.
Yep, #100 is way too low and I’m guilty, too, for leaving the film off my list.
Mark, it is truly bizarre how many of us left this off our lists, and have now subsequently regretted it. I’m one of the the guilty party too.
Thanks Mark. As I said to JD, Hutton is ok in small doses…
Probably my 6-7 favorite Sturges film, but I still can’t ignore its rightful place in a Top 100 comedies – that just speaks to the brilliance of Stuges’s entire body of work. I am sure that we will be seeing much more of Sturges as this journey progresses. As for this film, I am still amazed at the things that censors allowed into the film!
A nice essay Tony and a great way to kick off this countdown.
Thanks Dave. From what I have read, the negotiations with Breen were protracted, but as was usually the case, the Hayes Office worked from scripts and rarely viewed actual footage before release, so many producers just ignored him!
This is a fabulous film though I would favor SULLIVAN’s TRAVELS and THE LADY EVE. I was never a fan of Eddie Bracken or Betty Hutton but both are excellent in here. Bracken was actually good in Sturges “Hail, The Conquering Hero” too. Great way to kick this off, Tony.
Thanks John. A comic I suppose is only as good as the material. The Seinfeld crew is a case in point.
This is one of the funniest of American comedies. I voted it somewhere in the 20′s on my own list. Bracken and Demarest are brilliant. You make the mise en scene come alive with excellent writing to match the subject.
Thanks Bobby. Much appreciated
I rate this film higher than The Lady Eve. To me, MaMC is simply more wide-ranging and wacky. Granted, Eve has many moments of sleek brilliance, but MaMC is grandly representative of Sturges’ everything-but-the-kitchen-sink mode.
Pierre—
It does appears that a number of others on this thread are either lamenting not including the film on their ballots (I am one of them in fact!) or now feel a numerical re-assessment is in order. The wacky aspect is what ultimately qualifies it for this list in a very big way methinks. Nothing is sacred here indeed!
It’s so fresh – so raw and unbridled and all over the place, yet it all comes together and with mass appeal to boot. Lives up to the hype it dishes out.
Yep, I do agree, and feel that this thread has made one of the online pitches for this particular film ever. Your No. 11 placement can be credited for vaulting the film into the countdown too!
I can’t take all the credit, Sam — and no doubt some are still reeling at my inclusion of Lord Love a Duck….
Lord Love a Duck?
Hey that’s my cup too!
Favorite scene is Tuesday at the cashmere sweater store with Daddy.
And speaking of favorite scenes Pierre, would you concur that the wedding sequence is the funniest segment in MIRACLE? Or one of them in any case?
Also I think Sturges’ vision of small town life is deeper and more complex than Capra’s, yielding as it does contradictions and ironies.
Sorry Sam – at the moment I can’t recall that particular scene.
However, I do concur with your point regarding Capra v. Sturges.
I believe Sam is referring to the scene where Trudy and Norval try – unsuccessfully – to get a marriage certificate with Norval posing as the Ratziwatzki in a moth-eaten WW1 cavalry uniform
Hilarious.
I favored The Lady Eve over MMC in my ballot and it missed out – with the ballot limited to 60 movies – more because I wanted to balance my votes across decades and countries.
Pierre, Tony’s clarification is correct, I explained myself poorly there so it’s no wonder you didn’t immediately recall my proposition. Sorry about that.
I also inexplicable left the film off my own list because I didn’t want it to be Sturges-heavy.
But there is no doubt, no question that when this countdown is done the biggest scandal if you will is this film’s low placement. As it is there has been a mistake with the tabulation, but for now we’ll leave things as is.
I think the marriage certificate scene was the film’s funniest segment, and that’s saying something!
Indeed Peter, it’s tough to zero in on a single moment in a film that is so stacked.
One thing I like about this movie – and others by similarly unbridled, unconventional American filmmakers of the 40s is how they capture a wild, modern energy behind an era that tends to be looked back at nostalgically. Miracle is both a subversive swipe at MGM-style pieties AND an affectionate, accurate (if exaggerated) portrait of small-town Americana. It’s fascinating to look back at the film with our own after-the-fact baggage of nostalgia – and/or irony – and realize in some ways the America of the 40s was just as ‘modern’ as we are. This is just one of the many pleasures an original and unconventional artist from any era can provide: an alternate view of a mythologized zeitgeist.
I forgot to mention it above, but another American filmmaker I had in mind in that first sentence was Tex Avery. I think he an Sturges had a lot in common, sensibility- and even style-wise; sometimes I think of Sturges as a live-action cartoonist.
Ha Joel! I like that Sturges/Avery connection! Very persuasive if I may say so!
Well said, MovieMan!
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