hail the conquering hero

Hail the Conquering Hero is a 1944 Hollywood comedy movie written and directed by Preston Sturges, starring Eddie Bracken and William Demarest. Other notable featured actors are Ella Raines, Franklin Pangborn, Maxine Fife, and Raymond Walburn.

Plot outline

Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (Bracken) is a small town boy who has been rejected from the United States Marines owing to his chronic hayfever. Rather than disappoint his mother, he pretends to be fighting overseas while secretly working in a San Diego shipyard. After a chance encounter in a bar in which he buys a round of drinks for six Marines headed by Sgt. Heppelfinger (Demarest), the group decides to return Woodrow to his home, so as not to worry his mother. The Marines, to the chagrin of Woodrow, encourage the charade by loaning him their medals. Unfortunately, word reaches the whole town and when they step off the train, the harmless charade has escalated into town-wide deception, with the unwilling Woodrow soon enmeshed in the mayoral election.

The film can be seen as a look at both patriotism and hero worship in World War II America, and while adhering to the Hollywood wartime production code, it is retrospectively somewhat critical of the period's society's willingness to embrace heroes. In this regard it is somewhat of a companion piece to another Sturges film, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, which also featured Bracken, Demarest, and Sturges' usual cast of repertory players.

Award Nominations

• Best Writing Original Screenplay, 1945 (nomintaion) Academy Awards

External link

• Hail the Conquering Hero at the Internet Movie Database