The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)

OMG I'm in love with Preston Sturges!
About a year ago, I had a conversation with noted television producer Scott Moschella and he recommended Preston Sturges to me. I've created a Tivo wishlist, but this is the first movie I've captured with it - and it was AWESOME. So, thanks, Scott!



Trudy Kockenlocker is a small-town girl who can't resist a man in uniform. So when her overly-strict father forbids her to attend the farewell dance for the "boys" she convinces local sap Norval Jones to take her to the movies and then sneaks off to the party.

Poor Norval! Trudy plays him like a fiddle, tears up his car, and leaves him waiting at the movie theater all night. When she finally returns, she can't remember where she has been.

From what she recalls, Trudy thinks she might have impetuously married one of the soldiers under an assumed name. Unfortunately for Trudy, she turns out to be pregnant.

Of course, adorable devoted Norval is eager to help her out of this jam and, of course, hilarity ensues.



Trudy's little sister, Emmy, is one of the gems of the film with great deadpan lines.

It's almost like a Farrely Brothers film except - it's so feel-good and the plot, despite being 64 years out-of-date, is not predictable. It's just a great cast of characters in a comedy of errors compounding errors compounding errors.

Four stars, will definitely watch again and I'm sure I'll get more out of it.

My Favorite Wife (1940)

Four stars, will definitely watch again.

A shipwrecked woman returns to her family after seven years on a desert island and finds that she has been declared dead and her husband has just married another woman.

There is no sympathy for the other woman, she is an absolute pill but after a half hour of Cary Grant not being able to figure out how to tell his second wife that his first wife is still alive you do kind of want to just pick him up and shake him.



But he just looks so darn cute in his leopard-print bathrobe.

Anyhow, eventually Grant figures out that his wife wasn't alone on the island, he tries to figure out what happened on the island, she tries to hide it, and hilarity ensues!

It's akin to Bringing Up Baby in the combination of physical comedy and comedy of errors.

The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer (1947)

I watched the WHOLE MOVIE without realizing that the teenage girl is played by Shirley Temple!

She's great. Only very rarely when she says something with a lot of S's, can you detect little curly-head in this pretty, sophisticated and oddly precocious young woman. She makes a good little sister to Myrna Loy, which is high praise in my book.

Myrna Loy and Cary Grant and a great script full of quips and high-speed conversations full of misunderstandings and assumptions and underhanded accusations. Great stuff!

Seven More things to love:
1. stuffed-shirt Assistant District Attorney in a sack race
2. Myrna Loy in outfits with TONS of sequins
3. lovable old uncle who also happens to be a psychiatrist manipulating everyone
4. vocabulary words "sklonklish" and "klunk"
5. lyrics from Labyrinth the movie happen to come up in dialogue
6. cooch dancers get their day in court
7. latin jokes

Do not miss this one! Four stars. Am watching again right now!

Okay and if you must have a plot summary here goes: affable charmer and playful artist Richard Nugent can't keep out of trouble - mostly because of the women who swoon over him wherever he goes. Only levelheaded judge Margaret Turner is unmoved by his charm. Judge Turner's little sister is another story, however, and when she falls for the artist, she falls MADLY in love.

In steps kooky Uncle and court psychiatrist Matt to iron things out - but he has an ulterior motive: to get the emotional artist and the logical judge together and get rid of the stuffy Assistant District Attorney who is Judge Turner's steady beau.

Signed,

A Moderen Singer of Moderen Songs