The miracle behind "The Miracle": Preston Sturges always was predisposed to skewering Populist films--and there is no better example than "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek.".

• Author: Gehring, Wes D.
• Position: Entertainment - Movie review

A PRESTON STURGES film often falls under the label of screwball comedy, such as his satirical farces "The Lady Eve" (1941) and "The Palm Beach Story" (1942). Yet, just as screwball films parody romantic comedy while jabbing at a litany of other social subjects, Sturges' pictures also frequently satirize feel-good populism, a genre often associated with director Frank Capra, a la "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" (1936) or "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946).

As New Yorker critic Anthony Lane later noted: "Capra comedies dwell on the gentle irony that the perfection you seek may have been sitting in your own home all along--and that, Sturges would contend, is the problem with perfection. [Sturges'] movies remain a bracing tonic against the sentimental, to caution us against the perils of overestimating human nature."

For example, in casting the squeaky clean Eddie Bracken as the male lead of "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" (1944), the famed director and screenwriter purposely enhances the satirical possibilities. Arguably Hollywood's greatest author of witty dialogue--which helped him win an Academy Award for Best Screenplay for "The Great McGinty" (1940), and Oscar writing nominations for "Miracle" and "Hail the Conquering Hero" (1944)--Sturges also was an enthusiastic fan of the slapstick go-getter populist-like silent film comedian Harold Lloyd.

However, with slapstick intact, Sturges later would satirize the comedian's Horatio Alger-like persona (with Lloyd coming out of retirement to star) in "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock" (1947), later reedited and re-released as "Mad Wednesday" (1950). Interestingly, the year before making "Miracle," Bracken confessed in an interview: "I do best as the serious guy--like Harold Lloyd used to portray, for instance, who is constantly involved in comic situations--and that's the kind of part I'm always striving for."

Regardless, Sturges' velvet satirical touch never has been more provocative than in "Miracle." The multilayered film seemingly presents a Capra-like America on the surface, while it manages subtextually to derail every small-town value for which this Populist stood, including patriotism, marriage, idealized family life, old-fashioned romance, and expurgating corruption with a single simpleminded hero.

Moreover, Sturges creates this critical and commercial smash during jingoistic World War II (history's "good" war)--shish kebabbing the very values for which the U.S. was fighting. By the time "Miracle" is over, independent film pioneer John Cassavetes' Capra crack seems like stating the obvious, "Maybe there really wasn't an America; maybe it was only Frank Capra."

The narrative of "Miracle" involves four main characters: a single parent curmudgeon of a father (Sturges regular William Demarest), his two teenage daughters (Betty Hutton and Diana Lynn), and a sweet, bumbling small-town schnook (Bracken) who always has had a crush on Hutton's character.

The plot twist early in the story is that patriotically promiscuous Trudy Kockenlocker (older sister Hutton) gets pregnant after a night of community-sponsored parties for young military men going to war. To Trudy's credit (and Hollywood's censorship office demands), the girl thinks she got married first but, between too much alcohol-spiked punch and bumping her head during a night of revelry, Trudy neither can remember what this alleged husband looks like, or even his name. Finally, after thinking hard, an often painful task for her, Trudy guesses the mystery man might be named Private Ratzkiwatzki--a memory moniker further accenting her cartoon character-like mind.

However, Sturges performs instant damage control on Trudy's shaky morals by doing what he does best--penning a script so fast-forward in its action that the viewer soon is more concerned with how to solve Trudy's problem rather than belaboring why...