This typical training camp film has a couple of things going for it. The screenplay by Guy Trosper has some improbably keen and sarcastic exchanges between Army draftee Tab Hunter and his superiors. "Is there any chance we can make a soldier out of you, Schaeffer?", asks his barracks sergeant. Hunter is lying on his bunk, looking sour. "I'm here because the Army has many guns pointed at my back but don't wait for me to become ardent -- you haven't got the time." Another admirable element of the film is the supporting cast, and Murray Hamilton in particular. Hamilton plays much the same character as the platoon sergeant that he did as the recruit with "a touch of ROTC" in "No Time For Sergeants," except here he's largely benign. That ironic grin is peerless.
There are some amusing scenes too, which some people may not get. ("Turn your head and cough.") They were funnier at the time.
Alas, that about does it for the more watchable features of the movie. The plot is straight out of a training-camp-movie textbook. An unprepared ordinary citizen, preferably a little spoiled, is forced into one of the armed services, overcomes some serious difficulties, and emerges from his chrysalis, a fully-fledged Blue Admiral. Often there are army games or maneuvers of one kind or another, in which he sheds his civilian ways and saves lives. You can see it in movies as diverse as "The Caine Mutiny" and "See Here, Private Hargrove." You can see the same plot in a Laurel and Hardy feature.
The two leads -- Tab Hunter and the girl he left behind, Natalie Wood -- are both very attractive but neither is much of a performer. Pretty Natalie Wood would improve with time and with better parts but handsome Hunter had already plateaued although he'd just started a year or so before.
The experience that Tab Hunter has in basic training in the Fifth Infantry Division is almost incredible. The mess hall has separate tables, seating for four, with table cloths and a vase of flowers on each. I went through boot camp and the mess deck looked more like James Cagney's berserk scene in Sing Sing in "White Heat" -- and I was just in the Coast Guard.
None of the recruits calls the sergeants "sir." Instead they insult the sergeants to their faces. They're full of sarcastic comebacks to which the cadre reply with tolerant smiles. If anyone in MY company had been as snotty or negligent as Tab Hunter, he'd have wound up wearing a red arm band in a retraining company -- as I did.
At any rate, if you want to see the U. S. Army brainwash a winsome young man and turn him into a clone of his platoon sergeant -- make a man out of a boy -- this is the movie to watch. It ends with the regiment marching proudly on the drill field and a band playing "The Caissons Go Rolling Along."
There are some amusing scenes too, which some people may not get. ("Turn your head and cough.") They were funnier at the time.
Alas, that about does it for the more watchable features of the movie. The plot is straight out of a training-camp-movie textbook. An unprepared ordinary citizen, preferably a little spoiled, is forced into one of the armed services, overcomes some serious difficulties, and emerges from his chrysalis, a fully-fledged Blue Admiral. Often there are army games or maneuvers of one kind or another, in which he sheds his civilian ways and saves lives. You can see it in movies as diverse as "The Caine Mutiny" and "See Here, Private Hargrove." You can see the same plot in a Laurel and Hardy feature.
The two leads -- Tab Hunter and the girl he left behind, Natalie Wood -- are both very attractive but neither is much of a performer. Pretty Natalie Wood would improve with time and with better parts but handsome Hunter had already plateaued although he'd just started a year or so before.
The experience that Tab Hunter has in basic training in the Fifth Infantry Division is almost incredible. The mess hall has separate tables, seating for four, with table cloths and a vase of flowers on each. I went through boot camp and the mess deck looked more like James Cagney's berserk scene in Sing Sing in "White Heat" -- and I was just in the Coast Guard.
None of the recruits calls the sergeants "sir." Instead they insult the sergeants to their faces. They're full of sarcastic comebacks to which the cadre reply with tolerant smiles. If anyone in MY company had been as snotty or negligent as Tab Hunter, he'd have wound up wearing a red arm band in a retraining company -- as I did.
At any rate, if you want to see the U. S. Army brainwash a winsome young man and turn him into a clone of his platoon sergeant -- make a man out of a boy -- this is the movie to watch. It ends with the regiment marching proudly on the drill field and a band playing "The Caissons Go Rolling Along."