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

The history of film censorship is also the history of filmmakers who dealt with it. They usually did so by finding ingenious ways around it, and this was especially the case in Classic Hollywood with the MPAA Production Code, aka the Hays Code, the strictest and most infamous system of censorship in the 20th century. But there were also those filmmakers who tackled censorship head-on, hoping that they would simply shock censors with their outrageousness. The most successful among such efforts is represented by The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, a 1944 comedy written and directed by Preston Sturges.

The film was made during the Second World War, and that event provides the backdrop for the plot, which is set in the small Midwestern town of Morgan’s Creek. The protagonist is Trudy Kockenlocker (played by Betty Hutton), daughter of the town’s constable (played by William Demarest). Like so many young women at the time, she is fascinated with young men in uniform and wants to attend a farewell party for soldiers. Her authoritative father doesn’t want her to go, but she finds a way to trick him with the help of a young bank clerk, Norval Jones (played by Eddie Bracken). She asks Norval to convince her father that they are on a date while she goes to the party. Norval, who has carried a torch for Trudy since childhood, agrees, but the plan goes disastrously wrong. Trudy takes too much lemonade spiked with alcohol, doesn’t return until early morning, and soon discovers that she was apparently married to one of the soldiers. To make things worse, she can’t remember the name of her husband, and she too was apparently married under a false name. The situation gets further complicated when it turns out that she is pregnant. Norval again volunteers to help, but his efforts land him in trouble.

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is, in essence, a screwball comedy that lives and dies on snappy and sharp dialogue, quick pace, unusual characters and, most importantly, humour that helps the audience forget that the film deals with some unpleasant subjects like war, alcohol abuse and single motherhood. Sturges, who just as in his best-known film Sullivan’s Travels, knew how to explore the darker side of American society through biting satire, here takes aim at institutions that were supposed to be sacred – religion, family and, last but not least, the military, which was supposed to be beyond any criticism during the wartime years. He does so not only with good direction but also with the help of a great cast, some of whom, like Betty Hutton and William Demarest, played roles that were explicitly written for them.

Sturges also succeeds in establishing sympathy for his characters despite their obvious flaws – Constable Kockenlocker is a violent tyrant, while Trudy is a lying manipulator. In the case of Norval, who is the most innocent of all the characters, the task is much easier but nevertheless well done thanks to the great comedic talent of Eddie Bracken, an actor who liked to improvise on set. Those very improvisations are, on the other hand, the film’s greatest flaw. When Sturges began to shoot the film, he actually didn’t have a finished script nor an idea of what the miracle from the title should be. When he finally found the answer, it didn’t look very inspiring, and the idea to put it in the context of war made the film look dated almost immediately after the war’s end.

Despite its flaws, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek was popular at the box office, and one of the film’s big fans was General Dwight S. Eisenhower, commander of Allied forces in Europe and future president, whose authority helped diffuse problems with censors. While audiences today can still enjoy the film, for critics and film historians it is more interesting as a case study in how a Classic Hollywood filmmaker could undermine a censorship code that barred the word “pregnancy” from being spoken in a film. In 1958, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek was loosely remade under the title Rock-a-Bye Baby with Jerry Lewis in the starring role.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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