THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK
(Paramount)
N this filth Writer-Director Preston Sturges comes nearer to telling a really bawdy story than most of us would have
thought possible on the screen. The leading character (Betty Hutton) is a small-town girl who goes on a wild party with some American soldiers celebrating their last night of leave, finds herself pregnant as a result, hustles a stupid but devoted sweetheart (Eddie Bracken) into going through the marriage ceremony with her, and becomes an international heroine by giving birth to sextuplets. It is a curious commentary on Hollywood, on censorship, and on a good many other things (including Mr. Sturges himself) that without the Hays Office, which exists to protect: picturegoers’ morals, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek would not seem either particularly bawdy or funny, and therefore not be very popular. For almost the entire development of the plot depends on the
polite fiction that, although she can rethember almost nothing about it, the heroine was actually married to one of the soldiers in the course of the wild party. It does not seem to matter to the Hays Office that this, if true, makes bigamists out of the heroine and her rustic sweetheart or else means that the sextuplets were conceived out of wedlock. This insistence on "marriage" is in line with the oft-repeated assurance that only ill-health debars the rustic lover from being in uniform himself. Yet this does not prevent his physical disability being held up to ridicule. And there are other aspects of the picture--perhaps even the central situation--which should excite pity rather than mirth. They are never given a chance to do so. Though it tends to become longwinded, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is a joke all right; often a riotous one, and it is told with enormous gusto by everybody concerned. But I did not find it very palatable. I do not think that puritanism enters into this judgment at all: it is just a question of taste.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19441103.2.23.1.1
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 280, 3 November 1944, Page 14
Word count
Tapeke kupu
332THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 280, 3 November 1944, Page 14
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Material in this publication is protected by copyright.
Are Media Limited has granted permission to the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa to develop and maintain this content online. You can search, browse, print and download for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Are Media Limited for any other use.
Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.
Log in