THE COCKEYED MIRACLE
US, 1946, 81 minutes, Black and white.
Frank Morgan, Keenan Wynn, Cecil Kellaway, Audrey Totter, Richard Quine, Gladys Cooper, Marshall Thompson, Leon Ames, Morris Ankrum.
Directed by S. Sylvan Simon.
The Cockeyed Miracle is based on a play by prolific writer and later film director, George Seaton. It was called But Not Goodbye.
Seaton had contributed to the screenplays for A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, written screenplays for musicals like That Night in Rio, moved to comedies and dramas with films like The Miracle on 34th Street. He also directed this film but was prominent in the 50s and 60s with such films as The Country Girl for which Grace Kelly won an Oscar, The Counterfeit Traitor and in 1970 Airport.
The film is a star vehicle for Frank Morgan whom most people remember for his role as The Wizard of Oz. He is matched by Keenan Wynn at the beginning of his career. The cast includes Cecil Kellaway as Morgan’s friend, Gladys Cooper in a more benign role than usual (so severe in The Song of Bernadette). The film also features Richard Quine, later to be a director of such light comedies as The Notorious Landlady, How To Murder Your Wife, Bell, Book and Candle.
The film focus on a family in financial straits with the father (Frank Morgan) seriously ill. After a visit from his friend, played by Cecil Kellaway, explaining why the money is not in the bank and has been invested in a property, the father dies. He encounters the ghost of his own father who died rather younger and there is the amusing interchange throughout the film between Keenan Wynn as the younger-looking father of the older Frank Morgan.
With crises in the family, the daughter wanting to marry the absent-minded professor who boards at the house, the son wanting to leave the fish-packing work and go to England to be employed making ships as his father and grandfather had done. With no money, the dreams are impossible. This means that the two ghosts have to do their best to try to get the friend to give the money – especially after he decides to pocket it. The film becomes a bit frantic in its dialogue at times – but it is a good example of old-fashioned film-making, strong dialogue, and imaginative aspects of fantasy.
1.An entertaining? Of its time? Now? The situation, the characters, the crisis? The strong dialogue and comedy?
2.The black and white photography, the settings confined to the house and the lighthouse? The obvious stage origins? The situations and dialogue? The musical score?
3.The situation with Sam Griggs, his illness, setting up the signals, Tom Carter coming to see him? The financial situation, investing in property, hoping to persuade the potential buyer after he tested the calm waters of the bay? Sam and his desperate need for money immediately?
4.The Griggs family, Sam as a boat builder, older and ill? His son working in the fish-packing factory, the possibility of going to England, to be employed as a boat builder, his hopes and ambitions? Jennifer and her love for the boarder, Howard and his being an instructor, offered the opportunity to be professor in California, packing to go (with all the pratfalls and the bottoms falling out of the bags)? Amy Griggs as the devoted wife of forty-three years? Ralph Humphrey as the owner of the factory, his being upset about Jim insulting his son? His visit and upset?
5.The setting of the scene for Sam’s death, his coming downstairs to talk, his family not hearing him? The appearance of his father? The humour of the younger-looking father and the older son? The son calling his father Pa? Their verbal sparring throughout the film as regards the fathers and their relative merits, Sam’s father and his irresponsibility? Sam and his love for his wife?
6.Ben Griggs and his capacity for raising storms? His raising the storm for the test of the bay? Raising of the rain and the lightning to frighten Tom Carter? His pleasure at being able to do this and perfecting it?
7.The humour of ghosts, their not being able to touch anything human – and Sam not being able to take the cover off his boat model after their argument about its reliability? Walking through walls, going up through the roof? Going from house to house?
8.The human situation: the discovery that there was no money, Jim and his dreams, concerned about his mother, whether he should go to England? Jennifer, wanting to stay home to care for her mother? Howard and his decision to stay with Jennifer, a happy instructor rather than an unhappy professor? Amy and her love for her husband, realising what had happened about the money? Her decision that the children should fulfil their dreams? Her intention to take in boarders and so be self-sufficient?
9.Tom, the temptation not to hand over the money after he discovered Sam was dead? Putting the cheque in his pocket, taking it out, dropping it, his return to find it, his relief? His finally coming back? The discovery that he was dead, struck by lightning? And the satisfaction that they would find the cheque in the clothes on his dead body?
10.An amusing fantasy – with presuppositions about Heaven, ghosts, the afterlife?
