Review of Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) by Edith N — 15 May 2010

Propaganda the Sturges Way.

It's funny--every time I watch a Preston Sturges movie, I think, I go and look him up on Wikipedia. (This time, it was to determine his own war history--he enlisted in World War I in the air service but saw no action.) What gets me every time is that he was an odd combination of upper crust and bohemian. His stepfather was a stockbroker, a man of wealth. His mother was a flibbertigibbet who had an affair with Aleister Crowley and gave Isadora Duncan the scarf which killed her. This film and its companion piece, [i]The Miracle of Morgan's Creek[/i], are about a kind of small town America that Sturges himself never lived. And while I never lived it, either, it still feels right. It feels as though, if you could step into the screen, you would meet real people living real lives. No matter how improbable the situation, it feels as though it's actually happening to someone; it's what Sturges does bet.

The day Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (Eddie Bracken) was born, his father was killed in action Somewhere in France. All his life, Woodrow knew that he, too, would grow up to be a Marine. World War II comes along, and Woodrow enlists--only to be discharged because of his chronic hay fever. He cannot face his mother after such a humiliation, so he goes to work in a shipyard and has Marines send letters to his mother from overseas. He tells all this to a group of six Marines in a bar one night, one of whom (whose name I can't work out; the credits aren't clear) served with Woodrow's father and was there when he died. He and the others decide that Woodrow is going to go home as a real Marine--and a hero, just like his father. Only things get out of hand. Not only can his ex-girlfriend, Libby (Ella Raines), not bring herself to tell him she's engaged to Forrest Noble (Bill Edwards), but by the time she does, the town has picked Woodrow to run for mayor against Forrest's father (Raymond Walburn).

What's fun about this movie is that it is, in theory, propaganda. It is, on its surface, about the goodness and nobility of the Marines--and people on the home front as well. The six Marines want to do something good to a guy who is hard on his luck. For one of them, it's to do a good thing for a mother (Georgia Caine), because Americans have this thing about mothers. For one, well, it's to do a good turn for the son of someone he admired very much. For the others, it seems almost as if they're just kind of going along with it because why not? However, it's no secret to them or to us that Woodrow's heroism is a lie. What's more, it's a lie to Protect His Mother. He's trying to carry on family tradition. What's more, Mayor Noble is right. These people don't really know anything about Woodrow except that he's a hero. Even leaving aside that they're wrong about that, exactly what qualifications does a mayor need in this town?

I think Preston Sturges is one of those film history figures who's kind of a litmus test. Have you heard of Preston Sturges? No? You're not a true film buff. Anyone can have heard of John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston. If you haven't heard of Alfred Hitchcock, in fact, you clearly just don't know anything about movies. However, Preston Sturges did a handful of great screwball comedies, satires of life and living of the '30s and '40s. He captured his time on film, surely a worthy goal of any filmmaker. I'd say he's probably in the fourth or fifth tier of filmmakers modern buffs might possibly have heard of, but if you haven't reached fourth or fifth tier, you're not a real fan of the medium. Snobbish? Sure. But I think real love of something takes thought and effort, and I think a lot of people think just loving what you encounter without trying to encounter more works just as well.

One of the things which makes it work--which, that same year, made [i]Miracle of Morgan's Creek[/i] work--is the honest goofiness of Eddie Bracken. In both cases, you can believe that events are overtaking him. In this case, you can believe that he would be afflicted with chronic hay fever. Most of the time, people in movies who are supposed to be plain and unassuming are basically just attractive people with bad hair. Eddie Bracken actually looks plain and unassuming, and while Ella Raines is more attractive than he, she doesn't look as glamorous as most Hollywood love interests. Bracken, like Thelma Ritter, never had much of a career, but they both did good work, and they both worked because they weren't what TV Tropes calls "Hollywood Homely." (Though, of course, the problem is hardly unique to Hollywood films!) It's not intended to be an insult; the fact is, few of us look like, say, Veronica Lake. What filmmakers doesn't seem to get is that putting a beautiful woman in glasses and flannel doesn't get you an unattractive woman. It gets you a beautiful woman in glasses and flannel.