Cinematheque: Preston Sturges

Capping off Sturges’s sidesplitting streak at Paramount, this ruthless sendup of mindless patriotism may be the most enjoyable anti-war film ever made. A perfectly cast Bracken (fresh from Miracle of Morgan’s Creek) stars as a runty discharged marine who is mistaken for a war hero when he returns home. The military milieu provides an ideal showcase for Sturges’s troupe of hysterical blowhards.