As the war continued, screen content was increasingly informed by it. Sturges, forgoing the glamorous trappings of the rich and would-be rich, brought his screwball sensibility to small-town America and made two farces that dealt directly with the homefront. The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944) is about a young woman (Betty Hutton) who goes to a soldiers’ send-off party only to find herself married and pregnant with no memory of who her husband is. Instead of hunks Fonda or McCrea, Sturges’s new leading man was nerdy Eddie Bracken, playing a stuttering milquetoast who sees spots every time he attempts a war physical and, therefore, remains miserably stateside. Even better is Sturges’s Hail the Conquering Hero, again starring Bracken, who gives the best, most rounded performance of his career. It would be the final triumph of Sturges’s too-hot-not-to-cool-down career, and it’s the least known and revered of his big five. (Is it because sex doesn’t figure into it very much?) It’s short on physical slapstick, though its plot is every bit as deliriously convoluted and anarchic as anything Sturges ever concocted. Hail the Conquering Hero both celebrates and good-naturedly pokes fun at American conventions, ideals, and values.

excerpted from John DiLeo’s
Screen Savers: 40 Remarkable Movies Awaiting Rediscovery
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