Hail the Conquering Hero

Director: Preston Sturges Preston Sturges

Overview

In this film, Eddie Bracken plays the son of a WWI Marine hero who is the first in his small town to sign up for military service. When Bracken is discharged from the Marines for hay fever, he hasn't the nerve to go home and tell his mother.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/10/2011
UPC:	0025192091001
Original Release:	1944
Rating:	NR
Source:	STUDIO DISTRIBUTION SERVS LLC
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[B&W]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	1:41:00
Sales rank:	42,264

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Eddie Bracken	Woodrow Truesmith
Ella Raines	Libby
William Demarest	Sergeant
Raymond Walburn	Mayor Noble
Bill Edwards	Forrest Noble
Jimmie Dundee	Corporal
Georgia Caine	Mrs. Truesmith
James Damore	Jonesy
Freddie Steele	Bugsy
Alan Bridge	Political Boss,Political Boss
Stephen Gregory	Bill
Len Hendry	Juke
Esther Howard	Mrs. Noble
Elizabeth Patterson	Libby's Aunt
Jimmy Conlin	Judge Dennis
Arthur Hoyt	Rev. Upperman
Harry Hayden	Doc Bissell
Franklin Pangborn	Committee Chairman
Victor Potel	Progressive Bandleader
Torben Meyer	Mr. Schultz
Jack Norton	Regular Bandleader
Merrill Rodin	Alfie
John Sinclair	American Legion Bandleader
Robert Warwick	Marine Colonel
Chester Conklin	Western Union Man
George Melford	Sheriff
Frank Moran	Town Painter
Tom McGuire	Town Councilman
Philo McCullough	Town Councilman
Franklyn Farnum	Town Councilman,Town Councilman
Kenneth Gibson	Town Councilman,Singer
Paul Porcasi	Manager of Cafe
George Anderson	Bartender
Mildred Harris	Marine Colonel's Wife
Dot Farley	Mamie's Mother
Marjean Neville	Mamie
Maxine Fife	Colonel's Daughter
Pauline Drake	Telephone Operator
Dewey Robinson	Conductor
Charles Moore	Porter
Miriam Franklin	Dancer
Werner Heymann	Composer

Technical Credits

Preston Sturges

Preston Sturges	Director,Screenwriter,Producer
Walter Oberst	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Writer and director Preston Sturges had a keenly satiric eye for the foibles of the average American, which he rarely used with greater precision than in Hail The Conquering Hero, a superbly funny example of satire that doesn't jab but prods gently. Eddie Bracken never worked with a director more sympathetic to his talents than Sturges, and he gives one of his finest performances as the hapless Marine Corps washout Woodrow Truesmith, and William Demarest is great as an often petulant Marine Corps sergeant who helps goad Woodrow into posing as a war hero; like the other members of Sturges' informal stock company, Demarest didn't often get roles as well-written as he had here, and he rose to the occasion admirably. As was often the case in Sturges' comedies, Hail the Conquering Hero sets up a fairly simple comic premise and then allows it to grow like kudzu; what starts as a well-intentioned white lie by Woodrow turns into a mammoth hoax that gets funnier as it grows larger and more improbable (after all, Woodrow looks as likely to live up to his mother's dreams of becoming a war hero in the Marine Corps as he is to be named Miss America). And while, as in most Sturges movies, things don't work out as Woodrow had planned, they do work out for the best; if he isn't exactly heroic, he's good at heart (as one of the Marines who sets the plan into motion points out, he lives by the slogan "Semper Fidelis" as much as any of them, though his loyalty is to Mom rather than the Corps), and if the citizens of his home town seem easily fooled, they're also willing to forgive. If Hail the Conquering Hero shows that regular folks have an amazing penchant for doing silly and absurd things, it's balanced by their basic decency, a balance that keeps the film's satire admirably good-natured even at its sharpest.