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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9781415713716
Format: Black & White, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
ISBN: 1415713715
Label: Paramount
Manufacturer: Paramount
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Paramount
Region Code: 1
Release Date: September 06, 2005
Running Time: 98 minutes
Sales Rank: 8954
Studio: Paramount
Theatrical Release Date: January 19, 1944
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Editorial Review:
Description:
After a wild farewell party for the troops, Trudy Kockenlocker, a small-town girl with a soft spot for American soldiers, wakes up to find that she married someone and can’t remember his name. Even worse, he’s disappeared and she learns she’s pregnant!
Amazon.com essential video:
During World War II, Hollywood's patriotic duty was to shoot stirring dramas and good-hearted comedies that celebrated America's brave soldiers and honored their loyal, virtuous wives and girlfriends. Which goes a long way toward explaining why this delirious Preston Sturges farce, filmed in 1943 at the height of the war effort (and of its director's powers), was delayed for a year while Paramount executives wrestled with Sturges's irreverence: in Morgan's Creek, the writer-director tweaked those stereotypes with his tale of Trudy Kockenlocker, a small-town girl who only wants to send our boys off with a smile. That she does, but she wakes up after an all-night party with vague memories of a dubious wedding and soon finds herself pregnant.
Trudy, played by the ebullient Betty Hutton, is wholesome, sexy, and something of a ditz, in contrast to Sturges's usual savvy heroines (represented instead by Trudy's teenaged younger sister, played by Diana Lynn). Trudy's savior is would-be boyfriend Norval, played to apoplectic perfection by the rubber-faced Eddie Bracken, who was never better than in this wide-eyed, pratfall-happy performance as the weary but loyal draft reject who stands by his girl. As Trudy's father, Sturges regular William Demarest likewise achieves a series of comic peaks as the exasperated and increasingly desperate Officer Kockenlocker.
Like Sturges's other Bracken-Demarest vehicle, the equally fine Hail, the Conquering Hero, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek was unique among wartime movies for its satirical sting and unblinking eye for hypocrisy on the home front. It's also enormous fun, a comedic romp that epitomizes Sturges's kinetic, high-speed style. --Sam Sutherland
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - One of the Funniest Films Ever Made!!
Preston Sturges, writer-director of this wonderful picture was a master! He set the bar at Paramount in the 1940s for comedy and this is a prime example.
It is great stuff indeed. With a cast that could not be bettered, this is one of the funniest films ever made. It starts off fast paced and there is not one single moment the screen is idle.
Betty Hutton gives a great performance and she was only 22 years old at the time. This film was her breakthrough in Hollywood and she is charming and endearingly funny.
Eddie Bracken is marvelous as the leading man with the funny face and the stutter. In my opinion he should have gotten nominated for an academy award. I think he is the glue that holds the film together!!
William Demarest (later Uncle Charley on Tv's "My Three Sons") as Betty's father is deliciously hammy and bombastic.
Diana Lynn, fourteen at the time, plays the kid sister with acerbic aplomb and sarcastic wit. She is amazing. Watch the scene toward the end when she and Betty are tying Bill Demarest in the jail cell and she conks him on the head.....what a howler!!
This film is hilarious and for the time it was made...at the height of WWII, was a refreshing escape from the madness that was going on in the world at the time.
When you have a couple of hours on a rainy Saturday morning or you feel like a good movie on a late night, a movie to make you feel good and that will make you ... Read More
Rating:  - Fast and Fun
I saw this film on TV...Late, a few nights ago. I loved it and found it extremely funny. It takes place (and was filmed) during World War II and set in small town America. The story line involves a young girl who feels that it is her patriotic duty to "see the boys off to war". She is told by her father that she can't go out to party with soldiers and talks the boy that has been in love with her since childhood to take her out. She convinces him to let her take his car and wait for her to come back to the movie theater, she never intended to see the movie with him. She comes back in the morning drunk and married. She doen't know who the groom was since they used false names. She soon finds that she is pregnant without a husband and no wedding certificate to prove she was ever married. The boy who loves her tries to help her by marrying her. The poor boy goes from one bad situation to another. Both Betty Hutton and Eddie Bracken were very good in this, but I enjoyed the supporting cast just as much, especially Diana Lynn, who played the younger sister that had more maturity at fourteen than her older sister.
I purchased the movie so I could share it with a few friends. After my copy arrived, I watched it with my daughter-in-law. Most of the humor went right past her. The basic premise of the movie may slip by some viewers in the generation after mine, since pregnancy without marriage is so commonplace and it is accepted now. There are also quite a few references that not everyone ... Read More
Rating: - The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, ahead of it's time...
I saw this movie for the first time about 15 years ago on TCM. I consider it the funniest movie I have ever seen, and have worn out the much watched and loaned out VHS tape of it. Preston Sturges has made some of the most cutting edge comedies of his day. All of them cross the line at some point. The cast of Miracle of Morgan's Creek work well together. I aquired a new appreciation for Eddie Bracken and his wonderful ability to play the moon-eyed boy next door type. Betty Hutton was wonderful as Trudy, I don't think anyone else could have played these roles. If you have never seen this amazing old movie, I urge you to give it a try... I can't wait to get the DVD...
Rating:  - "The trouble with kids is they always figure they're smarter than their parents."
Trudy (Betty Hutton) loves to go to parties to entertain the soldiers on leave from the war. She loves it so much, that she uses her friend Norval (Eddie Bracken) to tell her father (William Demarest) that they are going on a date, so he won't know she's going to another party. He is afraid she'll elope, and that is exactly what happens. After too much "lemonaide," she finds herself married and pregnant with no recollection of her husband. Norval is smitten with Trudy, so he offers to marry her to cover up the scandal. She's so appreciative, she falls in love with him, but is totally unprepared for recifying the situation. The young couple finds themselves in quite a pickle.
It is interesting to see Hutton here out of her element. She does not sing, nor does she seem to be the only ham in the show. Bracken is her equal, which is what makes this movie work so well. The two are an excellent team.
Also included on this DVD are two wonderful featurettes. One details the making of the film in relation to Preston Sturges, the director, and one confronts the issues this film faced regarding the production code.
Rating: - The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
Preston Sturges's divinely goofy comedy is extremely broad, but still clicks, thanks to a bizarre, surprisingly risque premise only this director could concoct, and a kooky cast only he could assemble. Hutton and Bracken are mutually over-the-top as Trudy and Norval, creating a frantic comic rhythm all their own, but Demarest steals it as Trudy's volatile Dad ("Daughters!"). Love it or not, you'll never see anything quite like it!
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