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SLAPSTICK

Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Preston Sturges'

Miracle at Morgan's Creek (1944)

with Betty Hutton and Eddy Bracken.

There is no way to summarize this knock-down-drag-out farce. It just roars off the screen.

An abundance of reliable character actors and walk ons by more notable stars fleshes out the two main performances. Chief of these is William Demarest as the chief of police and Hutton's Dad.

The background to this film is that Sturges set out to break every provision of the Hays office production code which, at that time, served to control the 'morals' of every picture.

Strike one: the film has an 'illegitimate' pregnancy at the heart of it. Strike Two: the father is never found. Strike Three; Everyone lives happily ever after.

Horrors!

A lot of the comedy is outdated and the walk-ons by known stars is tough to follow 60 years later but it still has a lot of fun and is well worth watching.

I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5 and a thank you to Sturges for what amounted to a death blow to the censors of the time.

I loved Betty Hutton when I was a kid. I saw everything she was in and she was in a lot.

Her high energy and tremendous dancing are memorable.

She was thrust into the Merman role for Annie Get Your Gun and stole the mojo for the character from Ethel the Great. Of course, Merman was a little old for Annie at the time. Not a fair contest.

I see by her profile at the link shows her to be a resident of Palm Springs.

She ain't listed in the phonebook but none of them are.

Maybe I will see her dancing down Palm Canyon Drive some day. She would be 85.