Life in a Small Town

In this film Sturges, who wrote the screenplay as well as directed, pokes fun at the conventions and taboos of small-town America. Betty Hutton stars as Trudy, a young woman who feels it's her patriotic duty to entertain the troops of a nearby army camp before they are sent overseas. Her father (William Demarest), the town's policeman, forbids her to go near the soldiers. But she convinces Norval (Eddie Bracken), the young man who has loved her since they were kids and has been rejected by Trudy and the army, to help her sneak to the soldier's dance while he attends a triple feature.

As in all of Sturges's films, the dialog comes fast and furious, and everything is worthy of satire. And while Trudy comes off as overly sentimental and a little simple minded, her younger sister Emmy's sharp wit more than makes up for it.

Late in the evening Trudy receives a knock on the head and seems to enter a state of semi-consciousness. While Norval waits at the movie theater, she is getting herself married to some anonymous soldier. The next day she has only a slim memory of the ceremony or her groom's name and she herself gave the Justice of the Peace a false name. A few weeks later, she finds out that the marriage was indeed celebrated. With virtually no chance of finding her husband, Emmy finds herself effectively single and pregnant in a small town--something that simply didn't happen in those days, well, at least not at the movies!

Having set up one of his most convoluted plots (and that's saying a lot) Sturges proceeds to further complicate things for his heroine. Trudy and Norval come up with a plan to get Trudy out of her marriage, but this backfires spectacularly. By the end of the film it would seem impossible to untangle the mess they've put themselves in. But everything is soon put right by a self-serving governor played by none other than Brian Donlevy, The Great McGinty. Why does the Governor help? Because of the publicity value of the miracle referred to in the title. But you'll have to see the film to find out what sort of miracle it is.

If you enjoy films for their dialog, you are either a Preston Sturges fan or soon will be. His films are never dull or formulaic. They combine the best of golden age of Hollywood with a refreshing irreverence for the conventional.

-- Robert Stewart