Hailing 'Conquering Hero' fans
I love Preston Sturges, mainly for The Lady Eve and secondarily for The Miracle of Morgan's Creek. I also saw and enjoyed The Great McGinty and The Sin of Harold Diddlebock when I was a teenager.
I just saw Hail the Conquering Hero on video the other night. Here are a few miscellaneous thoughts – with some questions for any experienced moviegoers who stumble onto this obscure board. Feel free to answer any or all.
Both here and in Morgan's Creek, Eddie Bracken strikes me as an excellent character actor playing a leading part that's slightly too large for him. I'm reaching for a comparison, though, and can't find one. He's neither a leading man playing comedy like Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart, nor a clown in a leading part like Chaplin and Keaton. Who is an apt comparison to Bracken?
What do you think of Bracken's career in general? I thought he was adorable in Too Many Girls and hampered by a very weak script in We're Not Married!. I must have liked him in Oscar, but I haven't seen that since I was a kid.
Ella Raines (the love interest) and Bill Edwards (the other man in her life) are such drips that they seem to belong together more than Raines and Bracken do. Sturges, as writer, crams so much life into both parts that we like Raines and almost like Edwards. But, oh, I wish Betty Hutton and – I don't know; any suggestions?; someone else – had played these parts. Does anyone know if these actors were Sturges's first choices? Was he happy with them?
I have a feeling that portrait of Bracken's father is an in-joke of some kind. Is it a picture of Sturges? Does anyone know?
Near the end, one of the characters – I forget which – asserts that voters choose a politician for "reasonless reasons" (I'm borrowing that phrase from another writer, not Sturges's script) in much the same way a woman falls in love with a man. I can't tell if Sturges is (1) skewering this idea, (2) endorsing this idea, or (3) simply stating something he believes is true. What do you think?
This movie is beautifully designed and shot. I loved the way the camera slowly closes in on Bracken's face – his eyes glowing like light bulbs – as he recites the history of the Marines. The shot is mirrored later when the camera slowly moves in on Jimmy Conlin. (I can't even remember what Conlin was talking about.) There are several long takes. Once or twice Bracken and Raines are walking down the street together in unbroken shots that reminded me of a similar one with Bracken and Hutton in Morgan's Creek. Daytime shots in the town often look as if they were filmed outside in real sunlight. Does anyone know if they were?
All my reference books tout this movie as a satire on hero worship, but it has less of an edge than I expected. The movie is full of sentiment and even ends on a sentimental note. Does anyone know if the finished work was anything less than exactly what Sturges wanted? Did he have to compromise?
The supporting cast is a crack team: I especially liked William Demerest as the sergeant, Raymond Walburn as the mayor, Franklin Pangborn as the committee chairman, Esther Howard as the mayor's wife, Jimmy Conlin as the judge and Elizabeth Patterson as Raines's aunt.
I was disappointed to find this movie was not as sharp or funny as The Lady Eve or The Miracle of Morgan's Creek. Do you disagree? How would you rate this movie among Sturges's work?
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