|
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
(1944)
In director/writer Preston Sturges' fast-moving, farcical
screwball comedy - one of the funniest films ever made (and most
controversial - at the time, about an illegitimate pregnancy, a word
never mentioned in the film) - about the subversive nature of motherhood,
patriotism, small-town mentality, and "our boys overseas":
- the introduction of the main character in an early
scene in Rafferty's Music Store -- pretty clerk Trudy Kockenlocker
(Betty Hutton), the daughter of Morgan Creek's Chief of Police,
who was first seen mouthing the words to a phonograph record of
a deep-voiced singer crooning "The Bell in the Bay";
when the song ended, she told a group of soldiers in the store:
("Come on now, you got to beat it or buy something before
Mr. Rafferty gets after me"); after an invitation by the male
group, she promised to attend their going-away military dance that
night
- the scene of Trudy's explanation to her skeptical,
overprotective, "old-fashioned" father Constable Edmund
Kockenlocker (William Demarest) that she was attending the dance,
when he expressly forbid her to attend: ("Just a moment. What
is this military kiss-the-boys-goodbye business, and where is it
to be transacted?...Just a minute! What happens after the country
club?...So, as your father and mother combined, I'm here to tell
you that you ain't going on no more military parties")
- Trudy's friendship with 4-F rated local bank clerk
Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken) - he explained how his nervousness caused
his rejection by the Army: ("I'm perfectly calm. I'm as cool
as ice. I start to figure maybe they won't take me and some cold
sweat runs down the middle of my back, and my head begins to buzz
and everything in the middle of the room begins to swim, and I get
black spots in front of my eyes and they say I've got high blood
pressure again. And all the time I'm as cool as ice!")
Trudy's Secret Attendance at Military Party
|
|
|
- Trudy's secret attendance at the wild, drunken farewell
military dance party with lots of spiked Victory Lemonade (while
her movie date Norval served as a "decoy" and attended
three feature movies until one in the morning); and after lots
of dancing, hitting her head on a rotating glitter ball and suffering
subsequent memory problems; the next morning at 8 o'clock, she
met up with Norval on Main Street, who was blamed by her exasperated
father for returning her late
- Trudy's shocking realization that she might have married
one of the departing soldiers for combat; she described the previous
night to her pragmatic younger sister Emmy Kockenlocker (Diana Lynn),
and had great difficulty recalling anything: ("Can you imagine
gettin' hitched up in the middle of the night with a curtain ring
to somebody that's goin' away that you might never ever see again,
Emmy?"); when Emmy noticed the ring on Trudy's finger, she tried
to remember what had happened: ("I remember I danced with a
tall, dark boy with curly hair, and a little short one with freckles,
and a big fat blond one who sang in my ear. But if I married any
of those, it would have been the tall, dark one with the curly hair,
don't you think?"), and then she claimed that she couldn't remember
his name: ("It had a 'Z' in it....Like Ratzkiwatzki, Pvt. Ratzkiwatzki,
or was it Zitzkiwitzki?") - but in any event, they had both
given false names at the wedding that she couldn't remember; and
she also discovered soon after, to complicate matters even further,
that she was pregnant
- the comedy of errors when Norval became involved in
Trudy's problems by stepping in to be the soldier-father of the unborn
child
- the funny marriage proposal scene on the front porch,
in which the overly-nervous Norval attempted to discuss tying the
knot with Trudy to her father who was cleaning his hand-gun: ("Sit
down! What are you so nervous about?...There's getting to be quite
a little talk in the town....Where I come from, we don't skulk around
in the bushes, you get me?...When we gotta cross the street, we don't
crawl through the sewer to get there.... When we've got something
to say, we say it!...When is the happy event?...When are you and
Trudy getting hitched?... What are you laughing about?... You haven't
answered my question...There isn't any idiocy in your family, is
there?...Oh, she won't?...You didn't ask her right. You gotta be
more forceful in these matters. Dames like to be bossed. Now, you
take me...You can do better. You better do better....We accept. You're
in....You can settle the details up between youse. All I'm interested
in is results. I'm a man who looks at things broadly, see? (the gun
accidentally discharged)...I almost forgot, congratulations!")
- one of the concluding scenes in the frenzied lobby
outside the delivery room in the hospital on Christmas Day - where
nurses and doctors rushed about and announced: "It's a boy" -
then
"Twins!" - and finally: "Six! All boys!"; newspaper
headlines all around the world announced: "SIX BOYS!!", "SEXTUPLETS
BORN IN MID-WEST",
"SIX! ALL BOYS! SIX!", "CANADA PROTESTS - "Possible
But Not Probable,"
Says Premier", including "MUSSOLINI RESIGNS," and even
Hitler's tantrum about the news: "HITLER DEMANDS RECOUNT"
Announcements About Trudy's Delivery
|
|
|
- reclining in bed, wife Trudy innocently asked husband
Norval (in full-dress uniform): "We'll have to pick out a
name for it? Was it a boy or a girl?"; when he asked the same
question of Emmy, she motioned him to follow her to an adjoining
room where they looked through a glass partition at six cribs;
wordlessly, he went hysterical when he realized the sextuplets
were his, and he raced back to Trudy's room and collapsed on her
bed
- the film's ending title card dissolved over the ending
scene: "But Norval recovered and became increasingly happy for,
as Shakespeare said: 'Some are born great, some achieve greatness,
and some have greatness thrust upon them.'" THE END
|
Trudy Kockenlocker
(Betty Hutton)
Trudy with Father
Trudy with Norval Jones
Trudy Explaining Her Many Dilemmas to Sister Emmy
Norval's Marriage Proposal to Trudy's Father on Front Porch
Trudy With Norval After Giving Birth
Nursery Window - Viewing Sextuplets
Ending
|