Wonderful character development!

What makes it different from others?

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Leo McCarey's next to last film and last in the comedy genre is Rally Round The Flag Boys. After his previous film My Son John got such bad reviews McCarey was hoping for a comeback of sorts. It was not to be for him.The man who gave us such comedy gems as Ruggles Of Red Gap, Duck Soup, and The Awful Truth had seen his best days. Why a lot of the gems from Max Shulman's book on which this film is based were left out of the screenplay we'd have to have a séance to ask McCarey. It's not a bad film, in fact it's pretty funny in spots, but it lacks the consistency of McCarey's previous cited work. And McCarey who was a serious practicing Catholic I don't think was the man to direct a sexpot like Joan Collins in the sexpot character she played here.The stars are the newly married Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward who wind up on the opposite sides of a local issue in their suburban town of Putnam's Landing. To wit the establishment of a local military base in their town. The army has a public relations problem and that's Newman's field. They even go so far as to have General Gale Gordon call in a favor or two and have Newman's Naval Reserve status activated and special orders cut attaching him to the army. They need his public relations skills badly because half baked blundering oaf Jack Carson is the commander of said base.The subplot also involves Newman feeling neglected as Woodward wraps herself up in various civic causes, the prevention of the army base being the latest. He's feeling a real itch and neighbor Joan Collins who is also neglected by eternally busy husband Murvyn Vye is quite ready to scratch it.The physical comedy comes off the best, the highlight of the film in my opinion is the historical pageant that Joanne attempts to put on which ends in disaster. Joanne at this stage of her career is far better at comedy than her husband. Paul would have to wait until Slapshot before he had a real hit in comedy although I've always felt The Secret War Of Harry Frigg is underrated.Before they became Dobie Gillis and Thalia Menninger on television Dwayne Hickman and Tuesday Weld played opposite each other in this film. Someone must have noticed the chemistry there.Rally Round The Flag Boys has some good moments, but it is far cry from the pinnacle of Leo McCarey's career in the Thirties.

My local library picked this up as part of it's own fiftieth anniversary celebration last year, so this week I finally got around to watching it. With Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in the cast, one would expect so much more, but sadly that's not the case. The film is too farcical to be considered a screwball comedy, and relies too heavily on slapstick and buffoonery to make it's comic points. It's perhaps a tad above your typical beach blanket genre film, but without the girls, except Tuesday Weld who was embarrassingly juvenile. Other reviewers on this board who feel that she stole the show apparently missed the scene where she squealed in delight at Corporal Opie's (Tom Gilson) rendition of 'You're My Boojum'. Boojum, or Boo for short, is a word I've never heard before, and I'm sure never will again, unless I watch this one more time, and that's not likely.It's too bad too, because on the face of it, this vehicle had enough talent to pull off a capable production, but it got frittered away somewhere along the line. Newman comes across as absolutely goofy most of the time, especially in that chandelier/choo-choo escapade with Angela Hoffa (Joan Collins). As his wife Grace, Joanne Woodward is almost lifeless, something the script obviously called for by placing her on every pointless committee in existence in Putnam's Landing. Gale Gordon and Jack Carson portrayed their characters pretty much straight from the play book, but it was disappointing to see Dwayne Hickman as a neutered version of Marlon Brando from "The Wild One". It wouldn't have been so bad if he had tried out his Dobie Gillis TV role, I think that would have been much more effective.Which made it all the more puzzling to view the theatrical trailer on the 20th Century Fox DVD release, where Bob Hope practically rolls on the ground in a fit of laughter while congratulating director Leo McCarey on his cinematic achievement. I would like to have known what Hope REALLY thought. For viewers back in the day, the redeeming feature might have been seeing this one in full color, as the trailer itself for some dubious reason was offered in black and white.

"Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys!" may be a movie that you never get to see. As far as I know, it's not available on video or DVD; I saw it on TV one night. But anyway, here's the story: Harry Bannerman (Paul Newman) and Grace Oglethorpe (Joanne Woodward) are a typical (or not so typical) suburban couple in an idealistic 1950's small town in Connecticut. Then, when the army announces plans to build a secretive base near the town, Harry is hired to promote it, while Grace does everything possible to oppose it. In the process of everything, the townspeople begin to see things that they've never seen before - namely, when Grace catches Harry...well, I won't spoil it for you (don't worry, it's not (particularly) dirty). The whole thing ends in one wacky climax.Anyway, this is one of those interesting movies from the late '50s starring A-list stars, that for some reason doesn't seem to be very well remembered today. Good support comes from Tuesday Weld and Dwayne Hickman as local teenagers.

Playing his first comedy in "Rally, 'Round the Flag, Boys!" Newman was in the expert hands of Leo McCarey, who had directed Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields and the Marx Brothers… The Newmans are hard1y in that class, and the film is one of McCarey's lesser efforts, but it's often a refreshing reminder of thirties screwball farce as well as a frequently incisive satire on suburban life… Newman is a typical Connecticut commuter with a good job in Manhattan, whose wife (Woodward) spends all her time in community affairs, leaving him frustrated, and whose two sons are so hypnotized by television they hard1y notice him—so he escapes with alcohol and daydreams…When the Army schedules a top secret base for their town, the couple are on opposing sides: she heads the protest committee; he, a reserve officer, is "drafted" as public relations man to win over the town… Their marriage really goes downhill when she catches him in a compromising (but innocent) situation with a sexy neighbor (Joan Collins). Newman is often charming, but generally, in a role Jack Lemmon would have walked through, he overacts outrageously, trying so hard to be funny…Truly, some of the gags situations are forced, as when the drunken Newman and Collins dance the Cha Cha, swing on chandeliers, and fall down stairs; or when Newman is caught, literally with his pants down, turning away the predatory Collins and trying to explain to the outraged Woodward… But even Rock Hudson and Doris Day would have made something of these scenes… The Newmans are reduced to grimacing, exaggerated gestures and extreme over-reactions…The Newmans were still young, but they played such older-generation types that a teenaged couple (Dwayne Hickman and Tuesday Weld) were added for the younger audience… Incredibly, Hickman, who does an inventive caricature of an American teenager, plays it as Marlon Brando! Imitating Brando's "Wild One" performance, he mumbles, stutters, and ambles about with the familiar anguished look