gavin6942
After an all-night send-off party for the troops, a small-town girl (Betty Hutton) wakes up to find herself married and pregnant, but with no memory of her husband's identity.There were problems with the censors at the Hays Office over the film's subject matter. In October 1942, after a story conference, the office sent Paramount a seven-page letter outlining their concerns, including remarks made by the character Emmy, who is 14 years old; the potential of the film's portraying Trudy as being drunk; and reducing anything to do with Trudy's pregnancy. Of course, all these objections are part of what makes the film so darn funny, along with the screwball nature of it all. The scene where the cop tells a man over and over how to escape is just hilarious.Critic James Agee noted (not too subtly) that "the Hays office must have been raped in its sleep" to allow the film to be released. Although the Hays Office received many letters of protest because of the film's subject matter, it was Paramount's highest-grossing film of 1944, playing to standing-room-only audiences in some theaters. Such an interesting situation of humor trumping censorship... today, do we even have a censor? The MPAA is a shell of its former self.
weezeralfalfa
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.
