For years, Hollywood’s Production Code was the last word in regulating the decency of American movies. If a movie’s subject matter, content, or intent didn’t meet with the approval of the Production Code Administration (PCA), a movie had to be tinkered with until it did. It was a formidable obstacle for filmmakers, and such limits forced them to get creative. This was especially true of Code-era comedies, which often hid dicey material just well enough by playing it for laughs.
For my money, no one did it more successfully than Preston Sturges, who made a string of hilarious, outrageous comedies during the 1940s, at the height of the PCA’s power. Sturges’ best work is full of questionable material that he somehow snuck past the censors- think the Freudian snakes of The Lady Eve, or the husband plotting his wife’s murder in Unfaithfully Yours. Most outlandish of all was his 1944 farce The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, which had so much risqué material that it’s a miracle it was made at all, let alone released.
How risqué, you ask? Look no further than the film’s premise. Betty Hutton plays young Trudy Kockenlocker (Kockenlocker!), who goes out dancing with some soldiers leaving for the war, only to have no recollection of what happened the next morning. She later discovers that not only did she get married, but she can’t even remember the groom’s name, aside from it being “something like… Ratzkywatzky.” Not only that, but she’s pregnant, so she enlists her hapless admirer, Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken) to help her out of her predicament. That’s just in the first half-hour or so. After that, it’s off to the races.
If Sturges’ inversion of the Biblical Christmas story seemed objectionable, that’s nothing compared to the film’s portrayal of pregnancy, a taboo subject under the PCA. The word “pregnant” wasn’t even uttered by a Hollywood release until 1953’s The Moon Is Blue. What’s amazing is how well Sturges navigates around his restrictions while getting his points across loud and clear. In the film’s final reel, Trudy is in her final days before giving birth. Unable to show her pregnant belly, Sturges instead films her obliquely, with the camera behind her head while she sits in a chair or outside a car while she sits in the backseat. Rather than denying Trudy’s condition, the camera angles are so contrived and awkward that they become a subversive joke unto themselves.
Yet what comes through most clearly in The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is its warmth. A prevailing theme in Sturges’ films is what it means to do good, and Norval is one of his sweetest characters. He loves Trudy so much that he’ll suffer anything for her. But Trudy’s goodness is just as important. She makes some big mistakes, but she learns from them, and along with Norval’s unconditional love they make her a better person. It’s because of this that we care about these two crazy kids through all of the bizarre hairpin turns of the plot, leading up to the final miracle on Christmas Eve, the outcome of which I wouldn’t dream of spoiling for you.
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