The Miracle of Morgan's Creek

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Preston Sturges, 1944) In the perpetual mating dance that writer-director Preston Sturges did around the blue-noses of the Breen Office, there was never a more sassy tango than The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, as sonorous a razz-berry, as flagrant a nose-thumbing as any director has done to his oppressive censors. 

Censors. It may seem odd in this "anything goes" era of film-making—where even dismemberment gets a pass for 13 year olds (but bare breasts get an "R"), where the foulest of epithets are uttered from the mouths of babes and fart jokes are de rigueur in kids' movies—that at the time this movie was made, you couldn't say the word "pregnant," or "virgin," men and women could not appear in the same bed, the subject of sex was merely metaphorical (as opposed to mythical in a teen movie) and represented by a camera pan to crashing ocean waves, burning fires, or shattered mirrors.

Yes, kids, we were Amish back then. At least, actresses weren't asked to wear veils...unless they were over 40 and the vaseline on the lens didn't hide the crow's feet.*

In this the script is an intricate little puzzle of studio "issues" that interlock to form a script that should have raised so many red-flags (and did), but take any of them out of the story and it would look like you were unpatriotic, immoral, or a perfect candidate for ex-communication. 

Of course, it's a comedy. Set and produced during war-time. And the sacred subjects of that war—God, Country, and The Troops—are all given a jaundiced eye that would come from living with a bellyful of bromides while just trying to eke out a living. Though clear-eyed and sentimental in the right places, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek can look at a manufactured convenience and still call it "bologna," and then acknowledge that, sometimes, bologna'll do the job. Even the movie poster has a conspiratorial wink in it. Like any good love story.  

Poor Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken). He's been in love with Gertrude Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) since they were kids, and he's got it bad. "I wish you were in a lot of trouble, Trudy, so I can help you."

Note to Norval: You, uh...you've REALLY got to be careful what you want. Especially when it comes to Trudy. She's only got eyes for the servicemen going overseas. She wants to do her part for our "fine and clean young men" and to give 'em a good time before they go off to war, over the objections of her constable father (Sturges pillar William Demarest). He forbids her to go to the USO dance on Tuesday, because as a veteran of The War to End All Wars, he knows servicemen have their minds on only one thing. "Oh no," says Trudy. "They're not like that any more! These are good boys, noble boys." But Pappy is unconvinced. So she conspires with Norval to take her to the movies, and once there, she dumps him, takes his car, and does a pub-crawl with the "nice boys," telling Norvel she'll meet him back at the flicks at 1:15. 

She doesn't make it back until 8:00 am, with the car in tatters, her memory a little shaky, and Norval in the Kockenlocker gun-sights to take the blame when they get her home. With legitimate reasons. 

Or even illegitimate ones.

Evidently, she did more than her part for the troops. Trudy doesn't remember a lot about what happened that night, it's kind of a blur. She thinks she might have gotten married, but she's not sure—she can't remember the guy's name. So, she keeps it to herself—the boys are shipping out, who'll know? Then, there's the little matter of her being pregnant. So, there's a double puzzle: she can't tell anybody she's married without a husband, but she's pregnant without ever having been married. Maybe. What to do, what to do? 

It's a scandal. The kind that small towns hush up and don't talk about; but what fun would that be? There's a way out of the problem—don't even go there—but it can't go smoothly, and before the solution can be found, it has to get more complicated—at the top of its lungs. It even turns political, with guest appearances by The Great McGinty (Brian Donlevy) and "The Boss" (Akim Tamiroff), from Sturges' directorial debut. 

 

I've never liked Betty Hutton. I've always found her loud and grating and usually playing scatter-brained simps. Well, her Trudy Kockenlocker is a scatter-brained simp, but Hutton makes her sympathetic and funny, with a perpetual look of comic confusion, exhausted with dis-belief. She's all too willing to do physical comedy in an extremely unladylike fashion (one of which involves her getting clocked by one of those mirror-globes at an out-of-control jitterbug dance). She's a complete joy in this movie, whether by herself, matching stammers with the brilliant Bracken (who moves so fast in this movie, I'm surprised he's not a perpetual blur), or sharing sisterly woes with her wise-acre sister (the nifty Diana Lynn), who is the Horatio to her densley populated Hamlet. Never has a movie had such fun in being irreverent about such American ideals as The War Effort, and even Motherhood. 

In 2001, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek was selected for the National Film Registry. This American classic is also #54 on the AFI's "100 Years...100 Laughs" list of the funniest movies ever made. And it's somewhere near the top of the most boldly audacious movies ever created in a climate of repression. Add the caveat of taking such subversive gleefulness in its presentation, and it would be #1.

 

* It should be noted that once the Breen Office died the death of a thousand indignities in the late '50's and 60's, and subject matter was freed up for public consumption, There have been waves of motion picture permissiveness—we approach a line of the verboten and then back off, a few years later we creep up to the line and slink back in a cycle that seems more like evolution than revolution. There is still censorship, but the censor is the marketplace, and a film-maker must consider the box-office potential of his choices, as filtered by the specious and contrary dictates of the MPAA. Except for the screw-balls at the Ratings Board, it seems a more fair system: "Yeah, you can do that...but it's gonna cost ya."

The Great McGinty

The Great McGinty (Preston Sturges, 1940) Guy walks into a bar in a "banana republic" and tries to ventilate his own head. Turns out he's an embezzler on the lam who's made one mistake and wants to end it all. The bartender manages to stop him, but doesn't give him any sympathy. 

He thinks he has problems? He used to be Governor of the State!

The rest of the movie is Sturges' tall tale told in flashback that turns around the bar's doubters and the rolling eyes. 

Dan McGinty (Brian Donlevy at his most engaged and energetic) is a bum. He finds out that if he votes for a candidate for Mayor at a polling place, the candidates' "political advisers" will pay him two bucks. Sounds good to McGinty. 

But if he votes for the guy at 37 different polling places, he'll get 74 bucks! The politico's can't believe it. They're only petty criminals. They don't think "big" like McGinty.

So, after a brief turner as a mob "collector," he goes to the next logical career step—politics! Once Mayor, McGinty starts shaking down city fathers and handing out favored construction contracts, his "tough guy" tactics backed up by mayoral power. And nobody can argue with him, save the mob boss (Akim Tamiroff) with whom McGinty regularly has knock-down-drag-outs.

Oh, and his "married-to-look-good-for-the-lady-voters" wife/former secretary (Muriel Angelus), she gives him a kick in the pants every so often. But, when McGinty becomes governor, she talks him into doing some good for a change, and...well, you know that the old saw that "no good deed goes unpunished." That saw may be rusty but it still has teeth.

The characters are Dickensian, the fable is Aesop turned on his toga. And drama turned on its head. A tragedy is a good man who does something wrong. And in Sturges' street-wise script, tragedy befalls a bad man who does the right thing. No moral codes are being broken—McGinty is taken down. But Sturges' view is a cock-eyed, if soberly cock-eyed, story of moral growth and the trouble it can cause, especially if you're working for the people.

Told with brass and a wisenheimer humor, it's a criss-crossed morality play told from the other side—an anti-Capra film, told with that director's straight-forwardness, but with more of a knockabout flavor. 

This was the first film Sturges directed—he sold Paramount Studios the screenplay for $10 on the proviso that he directed it-and it has sophisticated ideas (which seem quite contemporary) told in a scruffy manner. If there's pretentiousness, it's all in the background and the sub-text, buried where no one can nod sagely at it. One gets the impression Sturges would look at a movie aiming for the handkerchiefs and blow it a raspberry. 

Before the year fades away, we're going to be looking at a lot more Preston Sturges, a director who doesn't get near enough acknowledgement in the movie history books. There's not enough Sturges in my head, and we're going to rectify that.

Lord Jim (1965)

Lord Jim (Richard Brooks, 1965) Orson Welles wanted to make this Joseph Conrad story about a disgraced seaman out to prove his worth to himself and the world, and he wanted to do it with Charlton Heston—they'd talked about it while making Touch of Evil together and Welles was particularly taken with Heston's vouching for him during the turbulent making of that picture. That sort of loyalty is unusual in Hollywood and Welles must have thought Heston a good match...and good box-office. 

Conrad's novel had been adapted once before—by Victor Fleming in 1925—and Brooks optioned it in 1957. His clout with such classics as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Elmer Gantry, and Sweet Bird of Youth allowed him to make this one, which required extensive location shooting. Acquiring Peter O'Toole, hot after Lawrence of Arabia and Becket, allowed Brooks to acquire a $9 million budget, which ballooned the scope, and Lord Jim was designed as a "roadshow attraction," complete with Overture, Intermission, and Exit Music.

The story is narrated by Marlow (Jack Hawkins)—the same Marlow of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"—as he relates the tale of young James Burke (Peter O'Toole) merchant seaman, young, enthusiastic, obedient, resourceful, who becomes Marlow's first officer before becoming injured and left to be treated in Java. 

His next assignment is less fortuitous: he's hired as first mate on board the rickety S.S. Patna, transporting—as the novel puts it—800 "pilgrims of an exacting belief," Muslims, to Mecca, when the ship hits a storm and has a collision on the Red Sea. Checking for damage, Jim sees that they're taking on water, and, telling the captain that they should get the passengers to the lifeboats, is surprised when the captain and other crewmen are more intent on saving themselves. The film makes it debatable whether Jim jumps in with them, or is washed onto the lifeboat is a squall, but the result is Jim is on the lifeboat, the Patna and its passengers, abandoned to their fate.

Making port, they find that the Patna, having survived the journey with the help of a French ship, has arrived before them. The Captain and the other crew disappear to escape the infamy for their actions, which, by now, has gotten around throughout the port, but Jim insists on a trial to atone for his abandoning ship, and he is roundly condemned, stripped of his sailing papers, the chief judge telling him that, instead of an inquiry, he should have just buried "himself 20 feet deep."

Jim does the next best thing, becoming a drifter from port to port, losing himself and running away from his shame in anonymity. An incident where he saves a skiff loaded with beer and gunpowder from exploding in the harbor attracts the attention of a Mr. Stein (Paul Lukas), who just happened to be receiving that gun-powder. It's destined to be shipped to Patusan where the people, led by Stein's friend Du-Ramin (Tatsuo Saitō) are trying to defend themselves from a warlord, "The General" (Eli Wallach), and Stein hires Jim to accompany the shipment to make sure it reaches its destination, there having been some sabotage in the past.

There are attempts made on the journey, as the weaselly Cornelius (Curt Jurgens)—who used to work for Stein as his representative before he was caught skimming supplies—now is aiding "The General" in his attempts to overthrow the natives. Jim hides the cargo, but is captured, and although tortured for the information, does not reveal where it's hidden.

Jim is rescued by "The Girl" (Daliah Lavi)—in the book, her name is Jewell, but the movie doesn't even give her character a name!—and Jim leads the Patusans to the supplies and launch an attack on The General, killing everyone but Cornelius. Jim is welcomed by his fellow combatants and given the title "tuan" by the Chief, which means "Lord."

Intermission.

If you want a happy ending that would be where you ended it. If you wanted a happy audience you might have ended it there, as well. Reportedly (and this may be apocryphal) it was at this point at the London premier that James Mason's parents were so bored by the picture, they left, completely missing their son's performance in Part II. Maybe a bit impatient, but one does get the impression that Lord Jim will never end, so elongated and detailed is the film, with sequences running a trifle indulgently, and every line of dialogue treated as if it were precious. This becomes readily apparent after the Intermission.

Jim stays in Patusan, beloved by the people and The Girl. Unbeknownst to him, Cornelius and Schomberg have brought in the cut-throat pirate "Gentleman" Duncan Brown (James Mason)—"he's given more business to Death than the Bubonic Plague"—to raid the village of its treasures, and although their attempts fail, Jim negotiates with the blackguards that they may leave if they never return again. The villagers and Du-Ramin argue for attacking the pirates, but Jim wants no conflict and vows to the chief that if anyone dies because of his mercy, that he will sacrifice his own life in forfeit.

So, Jim trusts the pirates to just go away, huh? He also sets up contingency plans that, should the pirates attack, the natives can fight them back. Meanwhile, Jim looks moony and talks about the position he is in, given his second chance: "I've been a so-called coward and a so-called hero and there's not the thickness of a sheet of paper between them. Maybe cowards and heroes are just ordinary men who, for a split second, do something out of the ordinary. That's all." But, there is a great deal of difference between a romantic idealist and a conscienceless pragmatist, and Jim frustratingly never finds a middle ground. If you wanted a happy ending, you should have taken a cue from James Mason's parents and left at intermission.

It is a long tedious slog to come to that conclusion and although some of the dialog in the second part crackles with cynical brio and Mason's performance is worth watching, one has to spend so much time with O'Toole's doubting Jim—trying ever-so-hard to bring some internal depth to this character that you get stymied by the dependence on the fragile blue eyes shining out of the screen without any of the nuance or creativity the actor brought to his previous performances—that, ultimately, you lose faith in Jim, O'Toole, and the movie.

Brooks is no help here. His staging is perfunctory, whether in Cambodia or Shepperton Studios in Surrey and the one interesting shot is in the beginning with a weirdly evocative shot of a "lost soul"—which Jim could have become—walking like a zombie along a Malaysian pier. One wishes that same sort of frisson could have shown up a bit more...or ever...but it's just a tantalizing moment in a film so confident in its ambitions that it never tries to achieve them.

Topkapi

Topkapi (Jules Dassin, 1964) Dassin spoofs his earlier crime dramas with this comedy-caper (based on an Eric Ambler novel) set in Istanbul. There an odd assortment of crooks (Melina Mercouri, Maximillian Schell, Robert Morley) recruit an English prat (Peter Ustinov, who replaced a planned Peter Sellers and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role) to take the fall for an elaborate heist—the stealing of a priceless ornamental dagger from the well-alarmed Topkapi museum. Shot in rapturous color—with an opening sequence that seems a precursor to psychedelic films—Dassin uses the local color to spice up the activities of the wily criminals and their elaborate scheme, which involves clambering over the pointed roof-tops, impeding the progress of a beam from a nearby lighthouse, suspending an aerialist over the display, while also precisely elevating its heavy glass case. It's one of those "Mission: Impossble" capers, where what could go wrong probably will, and the precisely planned plot goes out the window and they have to punt, lateral, and do whatever can come to mind to get over the goal line. The escapade is fraught with perils of all sorts, not the least of which is getting caught.

It's a jolly good time, and Dassin has as much fun seriously pulling off the robbery as he does spoofing the characters who fully fulfill the old adage of the best-laid plans of mice and men...and women. Twists and turns abound as much as a silhouette of an Istanbul skyline. Schell and Mercouri have never looked more glamorous—Dassin lovingly channels his Hollywood studio days with M-G-M with a directorial smile—and Ustinov has never looked more sweaty or been more peripatetic; Elizabeth Taylor won a sympathy-Oscar that year, and maybe the Academy did the same for Ustinov, seeing him scramble white-knuckled over high, slippery Istanbul rooftops.

For years, there was talk of a remake under the direction of Paul Verhoeven, with Pierce Brosnan repeating his debonair thief role from The Thomas Crown Affair to be called The Topkapi Affair. As it's been 18 years since that remake hit theaters, interest seems to have waned... at least until some studio head sees a heist film having a good opening weekend and asks if they have anything in the pile.

Alphaville

Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965) Godard's blending of genres (in this case science fiction and film noir) in the telling of detective Lemmy Caution (American actor Eddie Constantine, who'd portrayed the fictional detective in a series of french films), acting as a secret agent code-named 003, under the assumed name of journalist Ivan Johnson "from the Outlands" of space (so he says) who comes to the capitol of Alphaville as an agent provocateur to investigate the power structure that is controlling the city and its populace.

Packing a gat and an instamatic camera—which he uses almost fetishistically to take pictures of almost anything—as an example of why he might be called a detective, Caution moves against the Future by, first, seeking a fellow agent, Henri Dickson (Akim Tamiroff) in Alphaville, after checking into a swank hotel featuring hot and cold running seductresses (third class) and a couple of paid assassins, who try to kill him.

No such luck. Caution comes through very well, thank you, you're welcome. He sets off to Dickson's last known whereabouts, where he's informed that another agent, Dick Tracy, is dead, and then briefed on the state of Alphaville, a technocracy run by a giant computer like the old days only "one hundred and fifty light-years more powerful" (that's a bit like saying someone is smarter "by miles," but I'm being generous—you can't measure capacity by light-years). One thing you learn about Godard—if it sounds good, he'll put it in, even if it makes NO sense, whatsoever. There will be "light-years" of that stuff later on, once Caution throws himself to the wind and confronts that computer, the Alpha 60, which speaks with a low mechanical throb of a voice with the occasional death-rattle.

The alternate title of Alphaville was "Tarzan vs. IBM." Apt. When Caution takes his circuitous path to Alpha's chief computer Alpha 60 for interrogation (he's given access to the computer? Don't they have security? Couldn't that have been done by Alpha 50?) he is asked the basics—Name, birth-place, age, make and model of car (?) and "what do you love above all" (Ivan Johnson, Nueva York, 45, Ford Galaxy, and "Money and women")—he is asked some "test questions" as a "control measure" like "what were your feelings when you passed through galactic space?" ("the silence of infinite space appalled me") "What is the privilege of the dead?" ("To die no more.") "Do you know what illuminates the night?" ("Poetry") "What is your religion?" ("I believe in the inspiration of conscience") "Do you make any distinction between the mysteries of the laws of knowledge and the laws of love?" ("In my opinion, there is no mystery of love.")

The home of ALPHA 60 (which looks like the establishing shot of
police HQ Jack Webb used in the '60's version of "Dragnet.")

Those are the test questions for a control measure? For who, Rod McKuen, Space Ranger?

That last one sounds like he didn't understand the question. Neither did I, and I would have asked a follow-up about what the computer thinks the laws of love are (although I know they were different in the '60's in some states), and if I DID have the opportunity to ask the computer questions, I would have asked him if I had an infinite number of marshmallows, how many Lincoln logs would it take to reach the Moon. Then, as the Irwin Allen sparks started to fly and the voice throbbed "Illogical! Illogical!" I would have cursed myself for not asking what the iteration of the word "marshmallow" was first. Probably shouldn't kick myself as I doubt that you could find the answer where the Alpha 60 was programmed—the "philosophy" section of the Hallmark card store.

It's Godard in a playful mood (which makes it hard for me to take Alphaville seriously, but then, it's always hard for me to take Godard seriously). Despite that playfulness and downright silliness, the film seems a little dirge-like in its execution. With a limited budget, he tries to make the most of the locations he can find...even if that future time feels restrictively contemporary, even for 1965. Anybody looking for "visions of the future" can go looking elsewhere. For Godard, there's no imaginative city-scapes or vehicles—Lemmy drives a Ford Mustang, the low-level "sporty" vehicle of the '60's—or anything that might be called visionary, the only thing futuristic is the threat. 

And that may be the future, itself. 

"Go ahead. Explain to me about evolution again..."

For the future is a killer of romance, or else a romantic figure like Lemmy Caution wouldn't stick out amid its clinical walls and banks of switches (in the words of Raymond Chandler) "like a tarantula on an angel-food cake." That pre-supposes that you buy a creature like Lemmy Caution as a romantic figure, rather than merely a figment of a romanticized version of the past, and cinema's past at that. Like Humphrey Bogart starring in "The Big Sleep-Mode." The juxtaposition is amusing, but Caution is as much a conceit as Godard's vision of a clinical future. Both are unreal. And is a cold heart better than cold steel? Seems more of a toss-Up, there's no dog to root for in this fight.

Me, I think of it as bargain-basement Blade Runner (without Ridley Scott's mis-representation of his own work—ie. his "confusion" that human assassin Rick Deckard is also a replicant, like the killing machine-men he's fighting—even saying it like that makes no sense as a concept). Caution is a old-school human railing against the new-math machine and all that it represents. But, the world of Lemmy Caution is no bed of roses, either, and for all the talk of love and romance, it is hard to see in Caution's face or actions. It makes Godard's little movie of somnambulists battling the machine a little hollow, and one is left with a feeling that you're not watching a revolutionary romantic's railing against a stainless steel future, and more a cranky old man yelling at the kids to stay off his lawn. But, one not need to blame technology for things turning bad, time corrodes everything, man and machine. It's the most basic thing in the world to not like the future—it eventually is going to kill us.