What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966)

I was in the mood for some wackiness this past weekend, and that's exactly what this movie is:  wacky.  It's a light-hearted, quite zany WWII movie, with a cast I love:  James Coburn, Aldo Ray, Sergio Fantoni, and Dick Shawn.

The plot concerns an uptight by-the-book Captain Cash (Dick Shawn), ordered to take the remains of an exhausted company and capture the village of Valerno.  (This is set in 1943, in Sicily.)  The Italian soldiers there, under the command of Captain Oppo (Sergio Fantoni) are more than willing to surrender -- as long as they're allowed to have a festival that night first.  Naturally, Cash strenuously objects to this, but the offer of a peaceful surrender wins him over.  A gigantic village-wide wild party ensues that night.  The Italians get ready to surrender in the morning as promised, but things start going awry.  Things really go wrong with the Germans show up unexpectedly and capture the entire town.  Then the Italians and Americans have to work together before they're all executed at dawn.  This being a comedy, there's no doubt of the outcome, but it's how they beat the Germans that's so funny.

This movie isn't perfect.  The humor style isn't going to work for everyone.  And the festival drags and drags (though it's not without its moments).  On re-watches, I admit, I tend to skip right over that part. The section right after it, with everyone hung over and trying to deal with the aftermath and Major Pott and creating a fake battle is probably my favorite section, but I also love the whole end once the Germans occupy the town.  I mean you get Dick Shawn in drag, as just about the ugliest woman imaginable.  Makes me laugh and laugh.

James Coburn and Aldo Ray are, of course, my favorite parts of this movies.  They play Lt. Christian and Sgt. Rizzo, respectively.  They are hilarious without being outright silly, like some of the rest of the movie.  Aldo Ray gets to speak a bunch of Italian, which is awesome.  He spends a good portion of the movie in an Italian uniform that is too small for him (it'll stretch!), and that alone cracks me up.  I'm also extremely fond of Sergio Fantoni, who I know mostly as Captain Oriani from Von Ryan's Express.  He was one of my favorite characters in that movie, and I love him here too.  He's the perfect relaxed foil for uptight Captain Cash.

I spend a lot of this movie imagining some of this company hooking up in a couple years with Lt. Hanley and Sgt. Saunders in France.  Particularly as William Bryant is in this movie, as well as Kurt Kruger, and Horst Ebersberg, and Jay Novello.  It's hard not to think Combat! while watching this, as there's so many common denominators.

It also has an absolutely fabulous catchy main theme by Henry Mancini that I never tire of hearing:



Favorite parts:

The main title music
Lt. Christian translating Oppo's gesture.
The entire village brawl
The fake battle, particularly where Oppo shoots Christian and he refuses to fall down.
Capt. Cash in drag
Aldo Ray kidnapping Major Pott
When Major Pott flips his wig and starts spouting the most odd things

Our Man Flint (1966)

This is a movie I grew up on.  In fact, I can't even remember when I first saw it; it's one of those that has just always been there.  It's the first thing I saw James Coburn in, and it remains my favorite role of his, just because his Derek Flint is the epitome of self-assured, suave, smooth, butt-kicking awesomeness.

 (I love Galaxy's uniforms.  They're snazzy and cool and James Coburn looks great in one.)

Our Man Flint is a spy movie that parodies the Bond films.  A trio of scientists threaten the world by controlling the weather.  Lee J. Cobb plays Cramden, the head of ZOWIE (Zonal Organization for World Intelligence and Espionage).  His other agents have failed to stop the scientists, and so he must reluctantly call on super duper super spy Flint.  He's not fond of Flint.  Flint doesn't follow orders.  Flint is not a team player.  Flint is constantly showing him up.  But, he is the best spy on the planet, and the world needs the best spy to save the day...

Flint tracks down the bad guys, of course, to their very strange volcanic island lair.  Where he proceeds to single-handedly wreck the entire joint and save the world (without ever using a gun... shooting people is not Flint's style).  This is not a spoiler.  He's Flint!  Of course he will prevail.  In style.  That's what makes this movie so much fun.

 

 (Galaxy's crazy island)

When you also grow up on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Flint fits right in.  Both are Fox, both use many of the same sets, footage, and crazy science fictiony plot.  If no one's written a cross-over fanfic, I'd be surprised, as they all seem to inhabit the same version of the world.

Favorite things about this movie:

Any time Flint speaks in his own special code.  "It's based on..."  "I can imagine what it's based on..."

Flint's special lighter gadget, with 82 functions.  83 if you wish to light a cigar.

"It disappeared into thin air."

Flint napping (by stopping his heart) while stretched out plank-like, feet on one chair, head on another.  And his watch alarm.  Dude, I want one of those.

The red presidential phone and its famous ring.

Agent 0008.

Lee J. Cobb's constant, immense frustration with the Perfection that is Flint.

The fight between Rodney (Edward Mulhare) and Flint.

(Edward Mulhare and Scientist Bad Guys)

Barrels and the swan dive.  I think this may have been the part I waited for most when I was young.  Sheer awesomeness.

"Stall!  Flint is alive!"

The anti-American eagle.  "It's diabolical!"

Jerry Goldsmith's outstanding, swinging score.


My favorite scene goes along with my favorite cue, which kicks in when Flint starts climbing the multi-level outdoor ladder.  And goes up and up and up.  Although really, I adore the entire ending, from when he escapes execution to when he escapes the island.  He trashes the place, evades bad guys, fights bad guys, wrecks things, blows things up, and rescues his girls, and it's just great, cheesy, actiony, stylish fun.

(Favorite cue in the score, and a taste of Flint in action)

Yes, he has girls.  Four of them.  He takes them all out to dinner, dances with all of them, pays attention to all of them... None of them are jealous. However, every other male in the movie is clearly envious.  It's quite amusing.

(Flint and his beautiful companions, with Gila Golan as Gila)

There is a sequel, In Like Flint, that is also amusing, but not quite as much fun as the first one.

Miscellaneous movie roundup

So, I've watched a whole bunch of movies lately, but none have stood out enough to warrant their own review, but I still wanted to keep track of the more interesting ones.

"Brannigan" -- seen this one before, of course, cuz it's John Wayne. I remember liking it, and sure enough, it was still a lot of fun popcorn action. John Wayne can kick ass at any age and watching him and Richard Attenborough together is fabulously enjoyable. I also wanted to see Ralph Meeker, even in a tiny little cameo, playing John Wayne's boss, just because the thought of him ordering John Wayne around cracks me up. (And yes, I did rent it to get that whole two-minutes of RM screen time... hey, when I fall, I fall hard.)

"The Street with No Name" - Man oh man, Richard Widmark... never cross a character of his when he's on the wrong side of the law. He is so bloody intimidating. This was an okay movie, had that sort of documentary narrated style going on that doesn't really do much for me. It was good when it was in the nitty gritty of it. It was good whenever Richard Widmark was around. And it was even better when John McIntire was around. McIntire's one of those guys who shows up everywhere in older films. I mostly know him as a bad guy from westerns, but he was a good guy here, one that I was really really really rooting for. No, I wasn't particularly worried about the hero, but I sure was on the edge of my seat when McIntire was nosing around Widmark's lair.

"The Stranger Wore a Gun" - Randolph Scott western. Boring and the plot felt cobbled together, despite the great people in the cast, like Claire Trevor, Lee Marvin, and Ernest Borngine. Lee Marvin was the reason I had netflixed it, and he never does disappoint. He is just way too cool. This was also one of the many movies filmed in Lone Pine, and I've been systematically checking those out. They actually not only went up the Whitney Portal road, but into Whitney Portal itself for one of the shoot outs. It was quite cool to see what the pond looked like fifty years ago. Not much different, really! LOL!

"The Night Heaven Fell" -- Mmmmmm, Stephen Boyd. They dubbed over his lovely voice, so I had to listen to someone else speaking French, even though he was clearly saying his lines. Maybe they didn't like his Irish accent? So, quite disappointing from an audio standpoint, but ye gods the man is smolderingly sexy and brooding in this movie and... yeah. I've always found him attractive, but I've never seen him playing up the sexy angle in a role quite like this. He does it extremely well, and I have to admit, it caught me off guard. Didn't realize just how much he could turn on the sex appeal when he wanted to. He was downright mesmerizing. It was worth it just to watch him reduce every female in the film (and the audience, ahem) to melted goo. A young Brigitte Bardot's in it for the guys to drool over. She sure does show a LOT more skin than Boyd does. Hmph, but I think it says a lot that he doesn't have to. All he has to do is look at you.

"Duck, You Sucker" -- HAH! This movie amused me greatly. Sergio Leone spaghetti western, starring Rod Steiger and James Coburn, who make a surprisingly good pairing. "Duck, you sucker" is Coburn's signature line, and he uses it to great comedic effect when he first meets Steiger and they engage in a little tit for tat destruction of each other's property. Had to watch that part three times, it was so danged funny. I've always loved Coburn, but it surprised me just how much I loved Steiger here. Movie's a rather odd mix of humor and nasty deadly seriousness, but I thought it worked. Of course, it also explores friendship and betrayal, two of my favorite things, so that helped. And the bridge explosion.... holy moly. Now THAT is an explosion. That might just be the most jaw-droppingly spectucular explosion I have EVER seen on film. Wow.

"The Blue Bird" -- watched this Shirley Temple movie for sentimental reasons. I remember this movie from my youth because the cat and dog turned into people, because of the place of unborn children that freaked me out when I was little, with the ship that sailed in the sky carrying them down to earth, and the giant forest fire. Yep, those were all there, and still somewhat freaky and bizarre. But Gale Sondergaard was the cat and she rocked, even if they did make her a stereotypical, conniving feline out for her own good.