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Excellent adaptation.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

When Woodrow Truesmith comes marching home, it's to the happiest homecoming any U. S. Marine ever saw: Marching bands, a mortgage- burning ceremony for his mother, even a campaign for mayor. But Truesmith's not only a reluctant hero, he's no hero at all.Transforming a false-flag endeavor into the stuff of comedy would be a challenge for any writer-director circa World War II: Preston Sturges handles it with steady aplomb. Truesmith (Eddie Bracken) is no fraud; rather he's found himself with six real Marines who take to him and his failed effort to join their ranks, and decide to grant him the stature that hay fever denied. The fact Truesmith himself wants no part of this only makes it more interesting."They want heroes, we got six of 'em," says Marine Sgt. Heffelfinger (William Demarest). "All right, we throw in a seventh for good luck. Who's counting?"Bracken and Demarest have some great back-and-forths, two overbearing actors who find just the right backboards in each other. When Truesmith refuses to wear a Marine uniform because it's against regulations, Sgt. Heffelfinger waves it off: "That only applies to Marines."When the other five Marines take turns telling terrible Truesmith tales to the tipsy townspeople, Truesmith complains they are lying. Heffelfinger again holds firm: "Every one of those boys is telling the truth except they changed the names a little so as not to give out military information."Why are the Marines so gung-ho on selling Truesmith so high? Some of it has to do with his father, a war buddy Heffelfinger saw fall at Belleau Wood. Heffelfinger probably senses Truesmith would have turned out the same had hay fever not gotten in the way, and he's keeping faith with the old man. Also, these six Marines still have a war to fight. By championing Truesmith, they are getting maybe their only chance at a heroic homecoming of their own.And what a homecoming! Norman Rockwell couldn't have painted it better. Georgia Caine as Woodrow's mother makes breakfast for six new sons, while Ella Raines as the girl Woodrow left behind keeps putting off breaking the news that she's gotten engaged to someone else. This is comically difficult when everyone in town including the fiancé's mother is pulling for Woodrow.The usual Sturges stock company shows up here; this time there's no awkward shoehorning as the characters have just enough time to make their unique impressions without clogging up the works. It's actually a marvelous thing how the movie flows together, a thrusting narrative that makes time for diverse voices by having everyone interrupt everyone else. Raymond Walburn as the narcissistic mayor even interrupts himself.Just when things seem to be reaching critical mass, Sturges cuts to a tender moment between Bracken and Raines, or a tense one between Woodrow and one of the Marines (Freddie Steele) who suffers from undiagnosed PTSD and is fixedly determined that Woodrow not disappoint his mother, being he has no mother of his own. Even this isn't beyond Sturges' comedy."Are you nuts or something?" Woodrow asks him."Maybe," the Marine answers.Sturges works a political campaign into the story, coded messages about greedy Republicans doing battle with selfless Democrats with a war hero thrown in the mix. It's very simplistic, but adds to the fun.Sturges films can be exhausting, but "Hail The Conquering Hero" hits all the right notes. It has a lot to say about military service, and how people can contribute to a larger cause with or without putting themselves in combat. There are many ways to be a hero.

It is the middle of World War II and American towns are gripped by patriotic fervor. In Preston Sturgis's "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek," which appeared the same year as this, Betty Hutton was what was called "a Victory girl" who gave a departing serviceman a good-bye present that left unanticipated consequences. In Sturgis's "Hail the Conquering Hero," small-town nobody Eddie Bracken is quickly discharged from the U. S. Marine Corps because he has hay fever. Ashamed to go home, he gets a job in the city and writes letter to his Mom bragging about the battles he's been in. After all, Mom has already lost family members in combat and doesn't need a disappointment.Finally he decides to visit home. He buys a uniform and campaign ribbons to make his epistolary lies more believable. But on the train he runs into half a dozen tough Marines who have been on Guadalcanal. They're led by William Demarest. Taking pity of Bracken's mother, they get him in shape and escort him to his house.He's unexpectedly welcomed as a brave warrior. Bands play, crowds cheer, his beautiful girl friend (Ella Raines) begins to glow with a renewed admiration. His mother sobs with relief and pride. The townsmen plan to put up a statue. A parade marches down the street.Bracken is overwhelmed, having thought he'd slip in and out, but his Marine buddies prop him up and tell Homeric tales of his bravery. The town pays off his mother's mortgage and supports him for Mayor against a hilarious and corrupt blow hard. Some of the funniest moments involve Al Bridge trying to make a public statement or dictate a letter and being constantly interrupted.Frank Capra made a number of movies in a similar vein -- the gullibility of the public when faced with a phony or with big-time crookedness -- but there was always a sentimental climax in which honesty was finally rewarded. Honesty is rewarded here, too, but in a rough-house, grab-ass, ironic way. Nobody will weep when Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith makes his confession.Eddie Bracken is good at this sort of thing -- stuttering, shaking with fear, being shoved around by a horde of admirers, tearing his hair out with shame. Ella Raines is so conventionally beautiful that she's reason enough to stay home. The Marines are up to snuff. In fact, one of the more moving moments is when Bracken has developed a scheme to wiggle out of town and desert his adoring mother. One of the men loses his temper, Bracken hysterically socks him, and the Marine wipes his mouth and says contemptuously, "Go hurt a girl. That's all you're good for." The fact that the Marine can't act makes the scene more touching.The director came and went through Hollywood like a rocket. His career last for some years but he never equaled his output over a brief period in the early forties. Too bad. This is pretty good.

...and this is easily among his finest (and funniest) of his earthly works. Eddie Bracken manages to be hilarious and heartbreakingly lovable -- just as he was in "Miracle of Morgan's Creek." The entire ensemble of Sturges stalwarts -- people like the immortal Raymond Walburn and William Demarest -- are at the absolute top of their game.With crackling dialogue, finely drawn characters and a pell-mell plot, "Hail the Conquering Hero" is proof positive that comedy can be great art. More than six decades after it was made, it feels funnier and fresher than any comedy you're likely to see today. This comedy is an unstoppable snowball, gaining size and momentum as it barrels down a mountainside. See it, and then seek out Sturges's other masterworks.

I watched this movie last night and was wondering about the comment from the one Marine as they're standing at the back of the train at the end. Bracken thanks them profusely by stating he can't believe the Marines could do such a thing as to help him out. One Marine answers him in the last spoken words of the film: "You have no idea." What did he mean? I imagine it to mean the battlefield engagements and combat endeavors that they had undergone, but, yet the line struck me a little out of kilter. Good movie, but, a bit too harried and overdone. Bracken also plays the owner of Wallyworld in National Lampoon's Vacation.