No Time for Sergeants (1958)

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

... plus it is fun too! This is really worth watching for two reasons. It is obviously a blueprint for the popular spin-off TV show "Gomer Pyle USMC" starring Jim Nabors in the part played here by Andy Griffith, and it is interesting to make comparisons between the two. Secondly, it really is part of a tribute to the great yet unappreciated range Andy Griffith had as an actor. Here he plays the yokel as well-meaning good guy, anxious to serve his country but just too friendly and green to fully comprehend the discipline he is under in training camp. He thinks it is an honor when the sergeant gives him latrine duty, and his version of the 21-gun salute when the latrine is inspected is truly hilarious. Watch this and then watch him play the yokel as bad guy in "A Face in the Crowd".

Several days ago, I watched Andy Griffith in his film debut in the drama Face in the Crowd. Now I just watched on Netflix disc this, his second film recreating his Broadway/TV role as Will Stockdale in the quite funny comedy No Time for Sergeants. His naive characterization is quite a change from his cynical "Lonesome" Rhodes in FITC but wasn't too different from his initial fame as a comic storyteller when he spun something called "What It Was, Was Football" and it led to his long-lasting fame as Sheriff Andy Taylor on "The Andy Griffith Show" on which that character was also quite more humorous initially before becoming more of a straight man to deputy Don Knotts. Knotts, also repeating his Broadway role here, was quite hilarious in his brief part as one of the officers having to deal with Stockdale's way of doing things. So was Myron McCormick as the sergeant wanting to rid of Will and his pal who's played by Nick Adams. Since this was made during peacetime, that fact that the superior military officers don't get dignified treatment here isn't much of a surprise which is refreshing. So on that note, I highly recommend No Time for Sergeants. P.S. I was also pleasantly surprised to see Jamie Farr appear as a pilot here, about more than a decade before playing the cross-dressing Cpl. Klinger on the TV show M*A*S*H.

This is an extremely humorous movie but it isn't even close to reality. Andy Griffith is very good as the hick from the sticks (Will Stockdale). He barely reads, thinks rather slow, strong as an ox even though he isn't built like it, (it is almost a fantasy movie after all), and always seems to look on the bright side of any situation. He passes the tests in his own way. Twisting metal rings together, reading the eye chart as words not letters, out shrinking the shrink, etc. Murray Hamilton plays Irving, a recruit like all the others except put in charge because of some ROTC time. Irving rides the hick until he crosses the line and insults his dad. Stockdale then beats up on four out of five while Nick Adams jumps on the fifth. You see many up and coming actors and some good character actors too. Nick Adams, Jamie Farr, Will Hutchins, Dub Taylor, and the first appearance of Barney Fife, Don Knotts. Some how Will even passes gunnery school although he is at the bottom. After getting sent to an obsolete air base they end up getting involved in a nuke test, jumping out of the plane with Adams using one chute, assumed dead, they show up ten days later just as they are getting posthumous Air Medals. Since generals don't like getting shown up or getting made fun of two of them finagle a transfer to the Army infantry and it all gets swept under the proverbial rug.

The movie is based on a book of the same name. Both the movie and the book is set in Callville. The author, Mac Hyman, was born and died in Cordele, Georgia. It isn't hard to see that "Callville" is just a play on the name of the author's hometown of "Cordele." Hyman was studying at Duke University when he left to serve his country in World War II in the Army Air Corps. After the war, he completed his studies at Duke and returned to Cordele. That was when Hyman wrote the novel. It was adapted for television first and then for Broadway and then the movie. Andy Griffith played Will Stockdale in all 3 versions. It was Griffith's second movie after "A Face in the Crowd."