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Hail the Conquering Hero

Retrospectives - October 2003

USA, 1944. Written and directed by Preston Sturges. Photographed by John Seitz. Edited by Stuart Gilmore. Music by Werner Heymann. Released by Paramount. 101 minutes.

Starring Eddie Bracken, Ella Raines, Raymond Walburn, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn, Elizabeth Patterson, Georgia Caine, Al Bridge, Freddie Steele, Bill Edwards, Harry Hayden.

The dialogue of Preston Sturges shoots and shoots, never seems to miss, and convinces you of its genius in around about a minute. Almost every exchange gets a laugh, or sparks some recognition, or just leaves you breathless at the brilliant construction -- it sets off fireworks in the head of the listener.

It's not Oscar Wilde dialogue. It doesn't have intellectuals announcing themselves as wits by ribbing each other with delicious bon mots. The Sturges technique was cannier, seemed more effortless -- he mixed philosophy, exaggerated characterisation, irony and sentiment like it's just the way people talk. He could write a dependable snappy back-and-forth, or give someone pompous a speech that painted their portrait, or take some shnook in the corner of a scene and let him say something of unexpected insight that ended up making the moment.

There's a scene in "Sullivan's Travels" where the players are having an argument. Sullivan is a movie director gone out for a road trip, to find out what it's like to be poor. The studio has sent a band of employees to follow him. Sullivan does not want to be followed. He suggests they split up, and meet a few days later in Las Vegas. "What do they do in Las Vegas?" asks one supporting character, out of the blue and with mighty curiosity. Says another: "Everything, doctor. It's an education."

And there's the scene in "Unfaithfully Yours" where a conductor played by Rex Harrison goes to see the private detective who has been following his wife. The detective is a modest elderly man, and a fan of Harrison's work. He gushes like a boy, dreamy in his big old eyes, enraptured as he describes the concerts -- "nobody handles Handel like you handle Handel!" Look at the sincerity of the old guy, and listen to the detail he puts in his descriptions. And absorb the horror on Harrison's snob face, before he unleashes impatience with the clearest of blows: "The flattery of a footpad is an insult in itself!" The attitudes, the contrast; I'm laughing just from memory.

Sturges was a star in his time, and still much written about. Paul Schrader called him "that blinding ideal, that people stumble over trying to emulate". But today he is not as famous as other directors of 1940s comedies, like Capra, Lubitsch or even Leo McCarey. It's one of those oversights no one can explain. You may have never seen a Sturges film, although the titles ("Miracle of Morgan's Creek", "The Palm Beach Story", "The Lady Eve") are as famous among some film lovers as they are ignored by television schedules and those prickly best-of polls.

If you are indeed a Sturges novice, and feel like plunging into the work, don't make the same mistake I did and start with "Sullivan's Travels". With its blistering opening conversations and the subtle but audacious change of tone, it's too mind-blowing; it redefines standards and spoils us for other movies, perhaps even those of Preston himself. And maybe avoid "Unfaithfully", too -- it has some of the director's nicest looking compositions, and it should be saved for when you are a fan, so you can savour both the glorious content and the cinematic finesse in the manner of an approving friend.

Begin with a film like "Hail the Conquering Hero", which will inform you of the light surface and interior depth that marks a Sturges project, but somehow has less decisive obviousness in its perfection than those other films, and will give you the appetite you need. It stars Eddie Bracken as a guy who got discharged from the Marine Corps for chronic hay fever, and can't face going back home for the shame. One night he runs into a platoon of Marines from Guadalcanal; he buys them a drink, they listen to his tale of woe, and they determine to bring him home a war hero.

Basically, this involves lying. Bracken isn't crazy about the idea, but the soldiers don't see the problem. And then, as soon as the train pulls in the station, a fanfare has erupted. The whole town has come out to welcome their boy back, there are a bunch of brass bands making noise on top of each other, and the local left-wingers want to draft Bracken as their new candidate for mayor.

The set-up inspires at least four main strands of comedy: There's the performance of Bracken, loveable in his nervous modesty, his anxiousness that he's gonna be found out and his state of ongoing apology for not being a perfect guy. Alongside, there's the routine of the military men, including Sturges regular William Demarest as the tough sergeant, and Freddie Steele as one of the boys, who gets real insistent that Bracken be nice to his mom. There are frenzied crowd scenes, where Sturges fills the frame with bustling townspeople and stands back as chaos ensues. And there is satire about the nature of hero worship, taking this story of mistaken popularity and using it to make a point about how easily politicians can be crooks and how readily the public will eat up any story.

Bracken is sincere when he says he doesn't want to be mayor, that he doesn't deserve all this praise, that all this fuss is wrong. He tries to confess onstage, but bumbles through, and everyone takes it for glorious showmanship. ("He has a natural flair for politics… that milk and baby part is remarkable; after that he could be president!") This is funny enough, but the great stuff comes when Sturges compares to with the character of the mayor.

The man's name, not without irony, is Everett J. Noble, and as played by Raymond Walburn, he's a vain and pompous windbag, an idle rich chancer who looks like the cartoon billionaire on the logo of a Monopoly box. He's modest on stage too, but it's fake: My favourite scene in the movie takes place in Noble's office, where he dictates his next acceptance speech and keeps correcting the finer points. "Responsibility… make that 'deep responsibility'… no, just make that plain 'responsibility'!"

Phoney politicians are an old gag, but I like the way Noble seems so pleased with himself, and trails off into an argument about his son's marital plans, and gets flustered at the sight of a challenge, all the while trying to continue his remarks. I like the way he gets corrected: "You can't say 'both humility, satisfaction and gratitude'. 'Both' means two, and you have three." And his response, which says it all: "I've been saying it for years. I'm not running on a platform of correct grammar. I even let my grammar slop over a little sometimes -- purposely! It gives that homey feeling; horny hands and honest hearts!"

Sturges liked doing that; giving hypocritical lines to those in positions of power, and pearls of eternal wisdom to joes on the street. At the same time, he had a thing about the cluelessness of society; how the intelligent can waste their energy on greed, and the masses don't notice how they let themselves get screwed over. It was cynicism with a light touch; disgust mixed up with love, filtered through artistry into pointed but gentle comedy. These films are brimming with characters, filled with ideas and grounded by stories that could be told as simple fables.

By the '50s, Hollywood was finished with Sturges. He's often called the father of the writer-director job title, and Paramount got to feeling threatened by his ingenuity, throwing him out to put him in his place. But by the end of his career, he had created a string of masterworks, tried his hand at being an inventor, and had run a restaurant called The Players, which for a time was one of California's most popular nightspots. In his films and in his life, there was a feeling of breathlessly showstopping activity. His favourite book was called "How to Never Be Tired, and Live Two Lifetimes in One". And to quote one of his movies, "If you ever want something done, always ask the busy man -- the others never have time."

COPYRIGHT© 2003 Ian Waldron-Mantgani

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