STARLIFT is a pleasant film and no more. It's relative obscurity (despite a cast of cameo appearing stars from Warner Brothers) is odd until you realize it deals with the wrong war. Only half-a-dozen years before movies like THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS and STAGE-DOOR CANTEEN had been shown to appreciative audiences in the armed forces and in the country. But they dealt with the war experience in World War II. That national experience was incredibly unifying. Korea was a different story.
While the bulk of Americans were fully supportive of the boys and girls in Korea, the early 1950s had a split in America due to McCarthyism. If the returning Vets from Vietnam twenty years further on resented the anger misdirected at them, at least the issue of what they were up to (especially after the My Lai Massacre) kept the public aware of them. Eventually the public calmed down and put up the Vietnam Wall Memorial in Washington. But the Korean War Memorial is another matter. Korea, once the truce was signed, was quickly buried by the country, watching the antics of Senator Joe McCarthy. Think how many films were created to honor the war: PORK CHOP HILL, THE BRIDGES AT TOKO RI, and...yeah how many more can you think of, until say M.A.S.H. in 1970? And that film is really better recalled because of the television series of the same name.
So STARLIFT has not had the exposure that say STAGE DOOR CANTEEN did. It's the same idea, if the story line is a bit different. Two G.I.s (Ron Haggerthy and Dick Wesson) are in Hollywood and Wesson (playing his normal easy going conniver) manages to convince Doris Day and Ruth Roman that Haggerthy is a close boy-friend of starlet Janice Rule. They entertain the two (in the course of which they introduce them to Gordon McRae and Jimmy Cagney - the latter redoes some of his dialog from WHITE HEAT), and then Rule shows up. She really barely recalls Haggerthy (he was the son of her dentist in Youngstown, Ohio, and her father was the local sweetshop owner). However, due to Wesson's conniving patter, the women are convinced that they are headed for Korea on their next mission. So they accompany the boys back to Travis Air Force Base, and see how their appearance raises the morale of the men there. Haggerthy and Wesson eventually take off on their mission (helping to fly a transport to Hawaii to drop the men off there who are headed to Korea. In the meantime Roman and Rule get the idea of returning with other stars to entertain the men.
The plot (such as it is) is how Louella Parson hears of the relations between Haggerthy and Rule, blowing it into a romance. Potentially it would be a true romance, but Rule discovers that Haggerthy is only ferrying troops between California and Hawaii, and he thinks she is using him for publicity. The plot is whether they overcome these misunderstandings.
It is the performances that keep our attention: Doris Day singing several songs like "S'wonderful", and others singing (including Jane Wyman - a reminder that she actually did duets with Bing Crosby in some movies). McRae and Virginia Mayo and Barry Nelson do some nice numbers, Nelson as an MP singing "It's Magic" while imagining his perfect girl (Ms Rule again). Proper use was made of Phil Harris, first getting properly trounced by a bunch of G.I.'s in a Gin Rummy game (at only a penny a point - he ends up losing $700.00!), and then as the singer narrator of a "western number" spoof with Gary Cooper and Frank Lovejoy (a rarity for Lovejoy, who almost never was in a comic piece of business). Phil also gets in a crack about "Mr. Benny" and even one about "Alice". Randolph Scott does as a temporary master of ceremonies (when Harris is playing cards). Also the Warner's answer to Martin and Lewis (which never worked) of (Peter) Marshall and (Tommy) Noonan shows them in a passable bit of business about a cook who gets drunk trying to show how to bake a cake (call for Red Skelton's "Guzzler's Gin" which was shorter and funnier).
It is a decent escapist film, and a reminder of what we have to give our men and women in uniform to help them face impossible or dangerous situations for all of us.
While the bulk of Americans were fully supportive of the boys and girls in Korea, the early 1950s had a split in America due to McCarthyism. If the returning Vets from Vietnam twenty years further on resented the anger misdirected at them, at least the issue of what they were up to (especially after the My Lai Massacre) kept the public aware of them. Eventually the public calmed down and put up the Vietnam Wall Memorial in Washington. But the Korean War Memorial is another matter. Korea, once the truce was signed, was quickly buried by the country, watching the antics of Senator Joe McCarthy. Think how many films were created to honor the war: PORK CHOP HILL, THE BRIDGES AT TOKO RI, and...yeah how many more can you think of, until say M.A.S.H. in 1970? And that film is really better recalled because of the television series of the same name.
So STARLIFT has not had the exposure that say STAGE DOOR CANTEEN did. It's the same idea, if the story line is a bit different. Two G.I.s (Ron Haggerthy and Dick Wesson) are in Hollywood and Wesson (playing his normal easy going conniver) manages to convince Doris Day and Ruth Roman that Haggerthy is a close boy-friend of starlet Janice Rule. They entertain the two (in the course of which they introduce them to Gordon McRae and Jimmy Cagney - the latter redoes some of his dialog from WHITE HEAT), and then Rule shows up. She really barely recalls Haggerthy (he was the son of her dentist in Youngstown, Ohio, and her father was the local sweetshop owner). However, due to Wesson's conniving patter, the women are convinced that they are headed for Korea on their next mission. So they accompany the boys back to Travis Air Force Base, and see how their appearance raises the morale of the men there. Haggerthy and Wesson eventually take off on their mission (helping to fly a transport to Hawaii to drop the men off there who are headed to Korea. In the meantime Roman and Rule get the idea of returning with other stars to entertain the men.
The plot (such as it is) is how Louella Parson hears of the relations between Haggerthy and Rule, blowing it into a romance. Potentially it would be a true romance, but Rule discovers that Haggerthy is only ferrying troops between California and Hawaii, and he thinks she is using him for publicity. The plot is whether they overcome these misunderstandings.
It is the performances that keep our attention: Doris Day singing several songs like "S'wonderful", and others singing (including Jane Wyman - a reminder that she actually did duets with Bing Crosby in some movies). McRae and Virginia Mayo and Barry Nelson do some nice numbers, Nelson as an MP singing "It's Magic" while imagining his perfect girl (Ms Rule again). Proper use was made of Phil Harris, first getting properly trounced by a bunch of G.I.'s in a Gin Rummy game (at only a penny a point - he ends up losing $700.00!), and then as the singer narrator of a "western number" spoof with Gary Cooper and Frank Lovejoy (a rarity for Lovejoy, who almost never was in a comic piece of business). Phil also gets in a crack about "Mr. Benny" and even one about "Alice". Randolph Scott does as a temporary master of ceremonies (when Harris is playing cards). Also the Warner's answer to Martin and Lewis (which never worked) of (Peter) Marshall and (Tommy) Noonan shows them in a passable bit of business about a cook who gets drunk trying to show how to bake a cake (call for Red Skelton's "Guzzler's Gin" which was shorter and funnier).
It is a decent escapist film, and a reminder of what we have to give our men and women in uniform to help them face impossible or dangerous situations for all of us.