Service comedies!
Despite there being a small glut of them before America entered the War in 1941 (Buck Privates, Keep em' Flying and In the Navy, all made with Abbot and Costello) the trend had petered off during the war years and its immediate aftermath.
Through four years of bloody war and with over 1 million American service personnel either killed or injured throughout the conflict, the American public's urge to laugh at their men in uniform was significantly reduced.
If a film was made featuring one of the services, it was going to be a proper honest to goodness war film, full of realism, grit and heroics...no less than the heroes being portrayed deserved.
That all started to change in the mid fifties, most likely with the movie version of Thomas Heggen's and Joshua Logan's Tony award winning broadway smash Mister Roberts.
Heggen's original book based on his own wartime experiences was published in 1946, and although the play opened just two years later, Hollywood was for a long time, careful to do nothing that trivialised or satirised either the war or the men who fought it.
It seems however, that in the Hollywood book of morals, ten years is roughly about the accepted period of time war starts being funny again and the service comedy was reborn.
After Mister Roberts, came The Tea-House of the August Moon, Don't Go Near The Water, The Imitation General, The Wackiest Ship in the Army, It started with a Kiss, The Honeymoon Machine and Cry for Happy.
Yes, the service comedy suddenly became a big thing in the late 1950's, no doubt finding an audience with World War II vets who probably wanted to be reminded of the more happy aspects of their own days in the service. The camaraderie and hijinks rather than the death and the destruction.
Leading the way in this re-established genre was Glenn Ford, who in his 20 year film career up to that point had made his name mainly in Westerns, gritty film noirs and melodramas.
He had made a few comedies but with mixed results. It certainly wasn't a genre he was known for, or had achieved great success in, if anything, up to this point he was known more for his moody, tortured portrayals than anything else.
However, like Leslie Nielsen and Lloyd Bridges were both to do twenty years later, Glenn Ford became (for a few years at least), the dramatic actor turned comic, and he excelled in these service comedies and reinvented himself as an actor.
Following his performance in the aforementioned Tea House of the August Moon, he went straight into Don't Go Near the Water, a comedy not too far removed from Mister Roberts as it involves a non-combatant outfit of Navy personal stationed out in the pacific (this time on an island) during the final days of WWII.
The film is really a series of 10-15 minute vignettes each telling a separate story of either incompetence skullduggery, romance, or out and out comedy. Some of the stories are inter-connected, others are just stand alone.
You have the story of Seaman Earl Holliman and his prohibited but mutual returned love of Lieutenant Anne Francis, despite tall, dark and handsome Lieutenant Jeff Richards making a play himself.
You have Lt. Cmdr. And incompetent CO Fred Clark, insist his men build the new officers mess themselves, with very little construction skills to utilise amongst his men with hilarious results.
You have Lt. J. G. Glenn Ford and Ensign Russ Tamblyn successfully blackmail a sleazy and unpleasant military reporter for $1000 to not only bring him into line but to pay for a much needed new school house for the local children.
The funniest turn in the movie by far is a five minute cameo by Mickey Shaughnessy as Seaman Farragut Jones, who because of his historic naval name has been selected as the model American sailor to send on a publicity tour, only to find out he has a tenancy to drop the "The F-bomb" practically after every other word.
Of course with this movie being made in 1957, a carefully timed ships foghorn is utilised every time the swear word is supposedly being said which adds to the comedy, as does Glenn Fords exasperated reaction every time it is.
It's quite a daring scene as in those days with the Hays code still in operation, Hollywood didn't want its audience to know such a word even existed Let alone make a very funny and frequently used joke out of it, but it works and is very funny.
Does the film work? At times yes, in others no. I don't think the disjointed stories helped move the narrative along, but you are still engaged to a point.
The parts of this movie that are not so engaging do tend to drag, but they are more than compensated by the moments that really shine.
Fred Clark, Keenan Wynn, Russ Tamblyn and Jeff Richard's are all in my opinion criminally under-used and I think the film needed an overall narrative.
Worth a go! You can do better, but you can do much much worse!
Despite there being a small glut of them before America entered the War in 1941 (Buck Privates, Keep em' Flying and In the Navy, all made with Abbot and Costello) the trend had petered off during the war years and its immediate aftermath.
Through four years of bloody war and with over 1 million American service personnel either killed or injured throughout the conflict, the American public's urge to laugh at their men in uniform was significantly reduced.
If a film was made featuring one of the services, it was going to be a proper honest to goodness war film, full of realism, grit and heroics...no less than the heroes being portrayed deserved.
That all started to change in the mid fifties, most likely with the movie version of Thomas Heggen's and Joshua Logan's Tony award winning broadway smash Mister Roberts.
Heggen's original book based on his own wartime experiences was published in 1946, and although the play opened just two years later, Hollywood was for a long time, careful to do nothing that trivialised or satirised either the war or the men who fought it.
It seems however, that in the Hollywood book of morals, ten years is roughly about the accepted period of time war starts being funny again and the service comedy was reborn.
After Mister Roberts, came The Tea-House of the August Moon, Don't Go Near The Water, The Imitation General, The Wackiest Ship in the Army, It started with a Kiss, The Honeymoon Machine and Cry for Happy.
Yes, the service comedy suddenly became a big thing in the late 1950's, no doubt finding an audience with World War II vets who probably wanted to be reminded of the more happy aspects of their own days in the service. The camaraderie and hijinks rather than the death and the destruction.
Leading the way in this re-established genre was Glenn Ford, who in his 20 year film career up to that point had made his name mainly in Westerns, gritty film noirs and melodramas.
He had made a few comedies but with mixed results. It certainly wasn't a genre he was known for, or had achieved great success in, if anything, up to this point he was known more for his moody, tortured portrayals than anything else.
However, like Leslie Nielsen and Lloyd Bridges were both to do twenty years later, Glenn Ford became (for a few years at least), the dramatic actor turned comic, and he excelled in these service comedies and reinvented himself as an actor.
Following his performance in the aforementioned Tea House of the August Moon, he went straight into Don't Go Near the Water, a comedy not too far removed from Mister Roberts as it involves a non-combatant outfit of Navy personal stationed out in the pacific (this time on an island) during the final days of WWII.
The film is really a series of 10-15 minute vignettes each telling a separate story of either incompetence skullduggery, romance, or out and out comedy. Some of the stories are inter-connected, others are just stand alone.
You have the story of Seaman Earl Holliman and his prohibited but mutual returned love of Lieutenant Anne Francis, despite tall, dark and handsome Lieutenant Jeff Richards making a play himself.
You have Lt. Cmdr. And incompetent CO Fred Clark, insist his men build the new officers mess themselves, with very little construction skills to utilise amongst his men with hilarious results.
You have Lt. J. G. Glenn Ford and Ensign Russ Tamblyn successfully blackmail a sleazy and unpleasant military reporter for $1000 to not only bring him into line but to pay for a much needed new school house for the local children.
The funniest turn in the movie by far is a five minute cameo by Mickey Shaughnessy as Seaman Farragut Jones, who because of his historic naval name has been selected as the model American sailor to send on a publicity tour, only to find out he has a tenancy to drop the "The F-bomb" practically after every other word.
Of course with this movie being made in 1957, a carefully timed ships foghorn is utilised every time the swear word is supposedly being said which adds to the comedy, as does Glenn Fords exasperated reaction every time it is.
It's quite a daring scene as in those days with the Hays code still in operation, Hollywood didn't want its audience to know such a word even existed Let alone make a very funny and frequently used joke out of it, but it works and is very funny.
Does the film work? At times yes, in others no. I don't think the disjointed stories helped move the narrative along, but you are still engaged to a point.
The parts of this movie that are not so engaging do tend to drag, but they are more than compensated by the moments that really shine.
Fred Clark, Keenan Wynn, Russ Tamblyn and Jeff Richard's are all in my opinion criminally under-used and I think the film needed an overall narrative.
Worth a go! You can do better, but you can do much much worse!