In the middle of WWII comes this film that is full of references to that war yet manages to undermine the usual image of the valiant warrior marching off to battle, suggesting that along the way one of them took advantage of a tipsy girl, maybe even drugged her drink from her lack of recollection of the evening that was supposed to be an innocent farewell dance for the soldiers, and left her pregnant from a one night stand, never to inquire about her again. In the 21st century date rape comes to mind. If it was even a date.Now of course this soldier is never found or named. And instead a sanitized version of the story appears. What I wrote in the first paragraph is strictly between the lines. Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) is an underaged girl, probably late teens, back when legal age was 21, who is told by her widowed father, the town constable (William Demarest), that she is not to go to the farewell party because he rightly fears the rowdiness of the event. So Trudy says instead she will go to the movies with Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken). She knows he loves her and she is accustomed to using him, although she would probably never admit that to herself. So she borrows Norval's car, tells him she will pick him up after the last feature, but does not appear again until the next morning at 8AM, with a big blank where the latter part of the evening should be. As they drive away a "Just Married" sign falls off of the car's rear bumper, and when Trudy gets home she notices she is wearing a ring. Slowly, through the haze of memory, a "maybe" wedding comes back to her, but not the who or where. The trouble appears later when Trudy realizes she is pregnant by her anonymous husband, and she has no marriage license to prove her story.As in any Sturges film, there is a veritable cornucopia of wonderful one liners, which can come from any and every member of the large comic ensemble cast, at any time. No scene is too sacred, including a wedding, or a father's viewing of his newborn children. As for the cast, Hutton plays it sweet and somewhat dizzy, showing that she could prevail in other genres besides musicals, Eddie Bracken plays it nervous and a bit over the top as the only man in Morgan's Creek between 18 and 40 who is not in the military because of his 4F status, and the always funny William Demarest is full of pratfalls and one liners and even compassion when it is called for as Trudy's exasperated dad. Why does this remain in Paramount's possession when they sold off just about every other talking picture made between 1929 and 1949 to Universal? It is because, at the time, nobody believed anyone would ever allow this to be shown on TV.Highly recommended.

Another rollicking satirical contemporary comedy from its brilliant writer / director Preston Sturges, taking pot-shots at religion, family values and local politics as well as sailing as close to the prevailing movie censor standards as it dares, all in all a typical piece of work from the 40's wunderkind. Betty Hutton is the small-time far-from-bashful beautiful blonde, the rebellious daughter of the local hard-bitten policeman, as-crusty-as-ever William Demarest, herself introduced to us in a hilarious basso-profundo mime sequence in a music store. When the US army comes to town, determined to show the boys in uniform a good time, she ropes in her dorkish schoolboy-admirer, Eddie Bracken, to provide her with an alibi as well as transport to a series of all night parties where she goes all army-groupie, determined to see the boys off into battle with shall we say, a smile on their faces. She hits her head at one point, the next morning having only a vague recollection that she may have married a soldier and not unnaturally fallen pregnant in the process. Instant, immaculate conception, you better believe it!From there, the movie follows a suitably crazy-course to its six-static conclusion with the hapless Bracken prepared to make any sacrifice for the girl, although most usually doing so at the point of Demarest's gun. Hutton, thankfully, sees sense and becomes devoted to her infatuated beau, brought to earth too by the ministrations of her 14-going-on-41 piano-playing kid sister, Diana Lynn. Fans of the director will get a kick out of previous Sturges characters, cash-in politicians Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff reprising their roles from "The Great McGinty" trying to get a piece of the populist action which in the wake of Trump's election could hardly be more topical.My only criticisms would be that Bracken overdoes the Klutz routine a bit too much as overly-normal Norvel Jones plus there are probably too many pratfalls for my taste, but there's comedy gold in scenes where Demarest is trying to encourage Bracken to "escape" from his prison, the worldwide reaction to the sextuplets ("Hitler Demands Recount!") and Bracken's own reaction to the births at the very end, as he mouths "Which one's mine"? and then gets his answer.As ever, Sturges displays his mastery of pacing, overlapping non-stop dialogue and crowd management. It was just coincidence that I watched it so close to Christmas but what a festive treat it was.

Of course, the most amazing 'miracle' is that the Sturges satirical screwball farce ever passed the absurdly restricting Hays censor board. Despite all the reviews I checked over, I didn't find any that dwelled on the identity of the miracle. Clearly, the miracle in the story is the birth of sextuplet boys by Trudy: a small town late teen, who didn't remember having sex with a man, and didn't remember the identity of a possible 'one night stand' husband. Also, the boys were born on or near Christmas, which alludes to the possibility that the sextuplets represent a grossly exaggerated instance of virgin birth, as claimed to have occurred with Mary, mother of Jesus. Clearly, the sextuplets represent a yet more unbelievable birth than that of the then famous Dionne quintuplets of Ontario, hence the newspaper headline 'Canada protests'. At that time, no live set of sextuplets had ever been recorded in North America. The extreme frenetic reaction of the state governor and retinue and the press, and fearful reactions of Mussolini and Hitler are largely a satire on the extent to which the Dionne quintuplets were the object of awe during the preceding decade, when they were taken from their parents and exhibited as 'freaks' to some millions of paying curiosity seekers, helping Ontario survive The Depression.Aside from the governor, there are 4 principle characters. Three: older teen Trudy(Betty Hutton), min-teen Emmy, and her father(William Demarest), have the last name of Kockenlocker, while Trudy's nerdy, stuttering, boyfriend Norval(Eddie Bracken) has the bland name of Jones. I would imagine the somewhat tongue-twisting, yet lyrically memorable, Kockenlocker is derived from Washington Irving's alteration of the Dutch name Knickerbacker to Knickerbocker. An equally ridiculous- sounding name is also periodically bandied about, as Trudy's possible vanished GI husband, in a night of partying with some GIs about to leave: Ratzkywatsky. Despite it's memory-challenging nature to non-Slavs, it also has a lyrical quality that aids its interest and remembrance. I suppose Sturges was satirizing the many inane, often difficult to remember, names many people are saddled with. They also clearly represent verbal slapstick.William Demarest is excellent as the crusty veteran small town constable and Trudy's watchful father, saddled with trying to help figure out the best way to deal with the inane problems generated by Trudy's wild night. Of course, his attempts to help make the best of the situation only get himself and Norval deeper in trouble, in a hilarious series of incidents. See the film to discover the details!Demarest had a long Hollywood career, followed by a TV career. Having seen him in a few other films, he impresses me as Paramount's version of Spencer Tracy, with a dose of William Bendix added. Tracy, of course, would later be in a somewhat similar situation in "Father of the Bride"; considerably less comical than the present film. Demarest would again be part of the Hutton-staring "The Perils of Pauline", as her included film director.Bracken and Betty made an excellent team as sympathetic naïve dimwits, with a long simmering romantic relationship. This film, although not released until '44, was actually made in '42. Thus, it was the 4th and last film audiences saw that teamed Betty with Bracken: "The Fleet's In", "Star Spangled Rhythm, and "Happy go Lucky" being the others. Bracken usually played his typecast Don Knots' or Bob Hope-like character. He would be reteamed with Demarest, as his sergeant, in "Hail The Conquering Hero".Bryan Donlevy gets a respite from his common role in this era as a classy, sneaky, villain, playing the comically corrupt state governor, Dan McGinty: reprising this identity from the previous "The Great McGinty". He's always part of a frenetic circus in his office, relating to Trudy's predicaments, as part of a satire on the seriousness of the times given to women in her predicament, and to the Canadian quintuplets. The film begins with him getting a phone call from a reporter about a very newsworthy event in the obscure town of Morgan's Creek., which causes Donlevy to go berserk. We aren't told the nature of this event, and don't see Donlevy again until toward the end. Trudy's story up until this event is then told from retrospect. We first meet Trudy, working in a music store, lip-syncing to a record of a deep base singer, mugging like Lucille Ball, in her much later TV series., and reminding us of Stan Laurel, in "Way Out West". Yes, Betty does much remind me of the later, comical, Lucy.My main criticism of the film is that the whole beginning episode, where Trudy goes on a movie date with Norval, but really wants to dance and party with some anonymous soldiers about to leave town, is wholly unbelievable. To stop her crying, Norval agrees to loan her his car and go to the movie by himself, while she goes to party with the soldiers all night(a satire on the power of feminine desires to make some men do idiotic things to please them, I assume). She arrives back in the morning, claiming she can't remember the events of the last few hours, until she 'awoke' to find herself driving his car, and not remembering it's his car! Later, she finds a cheap ring on her finger, a 'just married' sign in the car, remembers a soldier jesting at the party that they all get married, and wonders if she agreed to a marriage(and maybe sex?) while in some semi-conscious state, claiming she had drunk nothing but some lemonade. An alien abduction sounds just as plausible! Probably, Sturges figured he had to do it this way to get around the sensor board.

I found this to be a mildly funny and extremely fast paced screwball comedy. Betty Hutton is quite cute in her portrayal of Trudy Kockenlocker. Yes, that's her name. And yes, there are quite a few phonetic gymnastics required in the crazy dialogue. There's "Ignatz Ratzkywatzky" - the so called husband Trudy marries on a whim after a night of partying with soldiers about to ship out. But the problem is, she can't exactly remember his name and used a fake name for herself. So, she can't find proof of the marriage and is devastated when she learns she is pregnant.I'm not sure I like the humor poked at having a unknown marriage partner, and a resulting pregnancy. But I'm sure things happened like that during the war as boys were being shipped out.The dad is very funny and is played by William Demarest (male nanny from "My Three Sons". His pratfalls, at his age, are quite impressive and are probably some of the funnier moments in the movie for me. And the younger sister, played by Diana Lynn, is very wise beyond her years. Quite a mature performance for such a young girl.