Rhapsodies

This week;s selection was World War II Comedies. Doing their best to mix humor with the horrors of war.

The first film of my selection, Kelly’s Heroes, Is a brilliant mixture of comedy, action and caper as a platoon of soldiers go awol into enemy lines to steal 16 million dollars worth of gold bullion.

This was a fantastic film with a tight script with some of the best character actors at the top of their games… oh yes and Clint Eastwood was in it too.

I have a hard time telling what I liked about this film best.. Despite it’s great humor it’s hard to call this a comedy since they do all of the war bits dead straight. But the balance is done wonderfully done and any time things get too serious we switch over to clueless jingoistic officers led by Carroll O’Connor who have no idea what is going on in the field sincerely believing that any setbacks are due to soldiers lacking team spirit.

This film is definitely my favorite Telly Savalas performance as he plays the curmudgeonly Seargent Big Joe who is against the whole thing but came along to keep everyone else from getting killed.  Donald Sutherland comes in a close second as the spaced out but brilliant tank commander Oddball.

The second film on my list Operation Petticoat by Blake Edwards starring Cary Grant and Tony Curtis tells the story of the crew of the Sea Tiger and it’s maiden voyage. Things start badly when it is sunk before even leaving port by a surprise raid. Now it has to limp to the closest ship yard for proper repairs. On it’s way it picks up five nurses who were stranded on an island and from there things get interesting.

While perfectly entertaining this film really didn’t do it for me that much. The battle of the sexes bits which the film focussed on were predictable and for the most part it was mostly a bunch of silly scenes linked together with a shoestring plot.

Not to say the silly bits were bad. I especially like the scenes whenever Tony Curtis’s character used some less than legal methods to get the necessary supplies to keep the Sea Tiger afloat… and the comedy of errors that lead to it being painted a bright pink are definitely worth the price of admission.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_6CKOM4pGI