The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
In contrast to what you might imagine for the 1940s, the plot involves a small-town girl named Trudy Kockenlocker going out to a tavern to celebrate with the boys before they go off to war. She consumes too much alcohol, falls asleep, and wakes up the next morning with a ring on her finger but no memory of her spouse (“…it had a z in it. Like Ratzkywatzky. Or was it Zitzkywitzky?”). Even worse, she quickly learns that she is pregnant and is missing one of her marriage licenses. The innuendo-filled script, which only gets kookier from there, ran into issues with the censors of the time, of course, and even though it’s relatively mild by today’s standards, it’s still snappy and entertaining throughout.
The Miracle Of Morgan’s Creek
The Set-Up
Robert Wise, a director best remembered for glossy Hollywood musicals like The Sound of Music and West Side Story, is still underappreciated in part because he didn’t seem to have a distinctive style. The Set-Up, a steamy, cramped, and nasty boxing noir about a boxer who is being set up to take a dive, is very dissimilar. Nobody informed him; it is simply expected that he will lose because he is such a has-been. Nevertheless, he doesn’t. It’s as ominous as noir gets and doesn’t let up once for the quick 70 minutes it lasts.
The Set Up
