Look! Up in the Sky » Preston Sturges

Preston Sturges

garydrobinson — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 20:46:30 +0000

Do you know the work of Preston Sturges, film writer and director extraordinaire? If you don’t, you really ought to get acquainted with the man and his movies. Here’s a little something to get you started

http://www.breakpoint.org/features-columns/articles/10009-the-comedy-of-grace

Sturges Scores Again!

garydrobinson — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:56:27 +0000

Lately, Barb and I have been watching the most consistently enjoyable string of movies we’ve ever seen. During WWII, Preston Sturges broke Hollywood tradition by writing and directing his own films. He had a marvelous ear for dialogue. As one critic wrote, “His dialogue shoots and shoots and never misses.” It’s funny, clever, and memorable.

HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO (1944) features Eddie Bracken as Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith, the son of a WWI hero, whose dreams of following in his father’s footsteps have been crushed by hayfever. The ailment causes him to wash out of the marines after only one month of service. Too ashamed to go home, he spends a year working at a shipyard. One night in a bar, he buys some penniless marines drinks and sandwiches. They hear his story and become his pals, pushing him into going home. There they pass him off as a decorated hero like his daddy. One thing leads to another and, soon, Woodrow becomes a most unwilling candiate for mayor.

The film climaxes with the conscience-strickenn young man confessing the fraud and telling his disappointed constituents, “If I could reach as high as my father’s shoestrings… my whole life would be justified – and I would stand here before you proudly… instead of as the thief and the coward that I am.”

But the marines come through for Woodrow. After he trudges off, “Sarge,” played by the always dependable, always enjoyable William Demarest, tells the crowd the rest of the story–what the young man had done for a bunch of strangers in a bar and what courage he’d displayed, equalling that of any man under fire. Sarge’s appeal makes the townspeople want Woodrow as their mayor even more.

The ending of HAIL is as stirring as any I’ve seen:

Woodrow: I knew the Marines could do almost anything, but I never knew they could do anything like this.

Bugsy [one of the marines]: You got no idea!

Woodrow: Will you come back?

Sarge: Well, we always come back before. So long, everybody… see youse in church!

As the marines salute off the back of their departing train, Woodrow mouths the words, “Semper fidelis.” The scene moves me just writing about it.

Get HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO. Get any Preston Sturges film you can lay your hands on. You’ll like it!

Miracle Of Morgan’s Creek

garydrobinson — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:06:36 +0000

Last night, we watched Preston Sturges’ THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN’S CREEK. During WWII, small town girl Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) goes out to dance the night away with some departing soldier boys. She winds up pregnant, not knowing who the father is. Into this mess walks Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken), who’s loved her since childhood. He agrees to marry Trudy. One big obstacle, however, is that this would constitute an act of bigamy. Betty supposedly married a soldier she barely knew just before he shipped out.

If this stretches credulity, it at least pleased the Hayes office (read: Dept. of Censorship). As a matter of fact, though Trudy appears drunk (albeit on “Victory Lemonade”), it was against the movie code for a young woman to appear so. She said she’d hit her head and thus couldn’t remember anything.

Amazing, the dance writer-director Sturges did with the censors! Nevertheless, at no time was the word “pregnant” used. Further, they couldn’t even show Hutton “great with child.” At this stage of the game, she’s photographed from the behind and, later, swathed in a coat in the back seat of a car.

All these things are interesting, but they do nothing to detract from a delightful film with marvelously funny dialogue. Trudy’s last name is Kockenlocker. She thinks the name of her child’s father is Ratzenkatski. Of course, he has no first name, so Norval supplies one–Ignatz. Ignatz Ratzenkatski. The attempted union of the stammering Ratzenkatski and nervous Kockenlocker before the Justice of the Peace is hilarious. Norval appears disguised as the soldier Trudy had married, but all he’s come up with is a WWI uniform, complete with broad-brimmed boy scout hat. On the virge of fainting throughout the ceremony, his fiancee frequently hefts him by the seat of his pants. It’s one of the greatest scene-stealing contests I’ve ever seen, as Hutton matches Bracken line for line.

Intriguingly, Trudy’s “blessed event” comes on Christmas Day; Christmastime at least. Sturges seems to be drawing a parallel between his heroine’s plight and that of Mary, the mother of Jesus. With her dad having lost his job and the town’s disapproving gaze set firmly on the Kockenlockers, they move to a farm outside of town. At one point, good ol’ William Demarest, who plays her gruff father, says, “Don’t lose your confidence in the Almighty–or whatever turns the wheels. That King was born in a cowshed. You might have a baby who’ll grow up to be president.”

Meanwhile, Norval, who’s gone off to try and find the real father, returns empty-handed–only to wind up in jail on a charge of bank robbery. But he gets out. He has to. For the Miracle of Morgan’s Creek has occurred! The headlines scream and the bullies of the world–Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini–tremble. Trudy’s given birth to sextuplets, all boys! (One newspaper headline shouts CANADA PROTESTS! Get the joke? If not, Google “Dionne quintuplets”) Norval doesn’t learn he’s the father of six boys until after he goes to the hospital. He promptly suffers another of his patented hysterical fits. But, as the epilogue reads, BUT NORVAL SOON GOT BETTER, AS HE REALIZED THAT SOME ARE BORN GREAT, SOME BECOME GREAT, AND SOME HAVE GREATNESS THRUST UPON THEM. THE END.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.