Operation Mad Ball (1957)

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Remember MASH (1970)? Well. This movie predates it, and in this one the medical corps also throws plenty of spanners that inevitably gum up the way of the army. Of course, this earlier movie doesn't have the total irreverence of Mash, but there is the same abuse and misuse of army regulations, which inevitably leads to the double takes of the usual, flabbergasted and endlessly (and always uselessly) flabbergasted officers. Unfortunately, this movie does not come across with anything like the same success, thanks to surprisingly heavy-handed direction by Richard Quine (a genial man, noted for his friendly approach and light touch), plus the script's over-reliance on dialogue that is both over- repetitive and tiresomely prone to milk the very last grains of humor from situations that were not really all that funny to begin with.

At a U.S. Army Medic Outpost in 1945 France, the wily Captain is outwitted by the ringleader of the private recruits. Arthur Carter, adapting his own play with support from Jed Harris and--of all people--Blake Edwards, starts things off brightly, but soon becomes mired in juvenile hijinks and sex-minded mischief. The privates hope to renovate a rundown French hotel in time for a secret dance between the soldiers and the nurses, all the while keeping Captain Ernie Kovacs in the dark. Kovacs does a great job at acting the buffoon, though his character, written without any dimensions, is all on one-note. We've seen these military tricks before (and since). Still, Kovacs manages a handful of bright moments in the first half-hour, easily upstaging Jack Lemmon and a well-chosen supporting cast. Richard Quine directed...and also co-wrote the theme song (!). *1/2 from ****

Jack Lemmon, two years after winning an Oscar for "Mister Roberts," stars in the tale of Army hijinks just after the end of WWII somewhere in France. It's amazing to watch just how much influence he has and he's not even a superior officer. He's trying to organize a ball for the men before they get back to the states. For many, it may seem like why should we care. But, for those who are patient, it does get better as it goes along. Mickey Rooney shows up in the second half, who always is a "ball" waiting to happen. It may not be Lemmon's best material, but costarring Ernie Kovacs, Dick York, and Arthur O'Connell, it deserves to be seen more often.

An easy-going bumbling Colonel commands a military hospital, the 1066th. A self-serving martinet second-in-command tries to use military regulations to tyrannize over the hospital staff. A fun-loving conniver wants to give the hospital staffers a chance to enjoy the company of the hospital's nurses while the second-in-command tries to thwart him. If Jack Lemmon and his friends had been doctors and officers, instead of enlisted personnel, the general resemblance to MASH would have been complete. When Richard Hooker's novel MASH was turned into a TV series (after passing through the movies), the writers must have been familiar with this movie. Curiouser and curiouser.