The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)

Preston Sturges' The Miracle of Morgan's Creek is a very silly screwball comedy that is very funny and completely fascinating. The first thing to underline is just how funny it is, and how pleasurable the laughs are. The film begins by making fun of a sweet young man who loves a young woman but is way too unattractive and uncool actually to get a date with her. Eddie Bracken is a strange movie star, but his comedic timing is perfect. He's like a junior Danny Kaye with the pratfalls turned up.

The true genius of Sturges' movie, though, is the skewering of the USAmerican value of marriage. It's brilliant. This young woman, played by Betty Hutton, finds herself pregnant the morning after a long night of drinking and dancing (and driving!) with a bunch of guys headed off to WWII. She is sure, during this period of being blackout drunk, that she got married to some G.I., but she can't actually remember which G.I. it was, since she knows she was dancing with at least three guys. So she's pregnant, and the dumb townspeople now have things to say about that, so she decides to get married to our dorky young friend. Hilarity ensues, about half of which is due to Bracken's extraordinary characterization and about half of which are due to satirizing the value of marriage. 

The whole thing is great. And in the end, [I'm about to spoil one of the big jokes in act three] Eddie Bracken and Betty Hutton get married, the governor of the state steps in and makes everything ok with the law, and our young mother gives birth to six boys. She's married already, of course, and he's happy to be the father–husband, but the implication here is, quite clearly, that this respectably married young woman had sex with six strangers during her all-nighter. The fact that this got past the censors in 1944 is kind of insane.

I watched this on the Criterion Channel.