Film Screening: The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)

There has been a sudden and deserved rekindling of interest in the great American film maker Preston Sturges. Reflected in articles in publications ranging from The Wall Street Journal to The New Yorker, plus a recent book by Stuart Klawans, former film critic for The Nation: Crooked, but Never Common; The Films of Preston Sturges. Local film collector and share-holder George Strimel will present a selection of Sturges’ creations this summer in matinee presentations.

In 1944 Hollywood was amazed at how writer/director Preston Sturges got by the prudish Hays Office with his screwball comedy The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek. A nice girl (Betty Hutton as Trudy Kockenlocker), daughter of a respectable town constable (William Demarest), goes to a wild sendoff for GIs. As the lemonade was spiked and she hit her head on the chandelier, her memory is fuzzy, but she thinks she got married and soon discovered she’s pregnant. Who the father is she doesn’t know. Someone with a Z in his name? Ratzskywatzky? Her 4-F boyfriend Norval (Eddie Bracken) has a plan to marry her and be father to the child, but all goes wildly wrong. Situations spark. Dialogue crackles. Sturges received an Oscar nomination for screenwriting, and in 2001 the film was selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.