[Review] At War with the Army with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis (1950)

[thrillingdetectivetales]

I was trying to watch Support Your Local Sheriff earlier this evening and discovered that Amazon Prime has removed it from "free to watch with Prime subscription" status. Presumably because it's now available on Starz and they've gotten into bed together, but I digress. While scrolling morosely through the similar movies list I stumbled upon At War with the Army with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis and thought "that sounds fun!" Turns out, I was right. (It's easy to be right about that when it's Martin and Lewis.)

This movie is super old so I'm not going to worry too much about spoilers. It's a musical comedy about a couple of soldiers in the 1st Armored, one of whom wants to transfer overseas but keeps getting foiled by promotions, and one who wants to get home to see his wife while she has a baby but is the bumbling sort and so can't get a pass.

Their unit also happens to be planning a USO show, which comes in handy when the Reluctant Officer (Sergeant Puccinelli, played by Dean Martin) leaves behind some important sheet music on his foray into town. The Bumbling Layabout (PFC Korwin, who is my favorite and also happens to be played by Jerry Lewis) secrets the music into town for his friend, but to do it he has to dress in some pretty impressive if ultimately unsuccessful drag. And yes, okay, the drag scene is played for the comedy of his not passing, but I still enjoyed the hell out of it. Lewis sings a song to the Sergeant who's been making his life hell (a man named McVey, who seems pretty dedicated to drinking himself silly enough to make a pass at Korwin—he actually says that! out loud!—considering that he spends most of his time hollering himself hoarse just to send Korwin on the runaround.)

Anyway Puccinelli gets his assignment to go overseas, and then loses it pretty much immediately because Korwin receives his baby announcement during an inspection and blows up the mess hall. After that, "[t]he Colonel says this is the most outrageous company he's ever seen"—another direct quote!—and puts the kibosh on Puccinelli's shipment while taking the unit to task for its rampant silliness. The zany plots are overall secondary to the musical numbers, including a delightful tap piece that Martin and Lewis perform, and as in most comedies the drama points turn out to be largely a series of misunderstandings to various degrees, but it was a really fun watch even so.

There's some pretty decent drill training, and the film overall starts with real footage of various weaponry, which is a nice visual aid for those of us interest in how one might realistically cart an M1 Garand around the battlefield. There's also a B-plot where a jealous private getting shipped overseas thinks that Stewart's character finagled the whole situation so that he could get with the girl the private has a thing for, while at the same time a beautiful but comically dim lady worker from the PX is looking for Stewart's character because she has important news to tell him. (The audience is supposed to presume that he's gotten her in the family way, courtesy gossip from the Captain's wife—who knows all and basically runs the outfit and is glamorous and wonderful—but it turns out that she just wants to ensure that their entanglement is over with since she's married now.) And there's a C-plot about a Coke machine that doesn't work, but everything gets sewn up pretty neatly by the end.

If you're the type of person willing to have a laugh at military bureaucracy and enjoy classic slapstick comedy and 50s era music, I highly recommend it. I'll probably be adding it to my personal collection because it was fun from top to bottom.