All Slights Deserved

I have to admit I've never been completely sold on the work of Preston Sturges. It took me years to see the film regarded his masterpiece, Sullivan's Travels , but while it's by no means a bad film I couldn't quite understand the acclaim. Sturges followed it with screwball The Palm Beach Story and its a livelier affair with sophisticated humour that's aged well, although certainly not on a par with Bringing Up Baby . So I wasn't sure how much to expect from Hail the Conquering Hero and perhaps for that reason came away pleasantly surprised. It's a deft little comedy; part satire on the (then) current fixation with war heroes and part Capraesque hokum of small town American life. Woodrow Truesmith (Eddie Bracken), a marine discharged with chronic hay fever before he ever saw any action, encounters some serving marines in a bar in San Diego. He reveals to them that he's been hiding out there working in a shipyard rather than go home and tell his mot...