McHale's Navy (1964) [DVD]

The series of McHale's Navy was one of my all-time favorite sitcoms of the 1960s. It also spawned two feature films-this eponymously-titled film from 1964 and McHale's Navy Joins The Air Force from 1965 both in living color. I would prefer this movie and the series over the dreadful movie remake from 1997 with Tom Arnold any day. Back in the day as a kid growing up in Morris County I watched the series after school following Laurel & Hardy which describes the acting chemistry of Tim Conway as the bumbling Ensign Charles Parker and Joe Flynn as the no-nonsense Captain Wallace B. Binghamton. But the real star here is Oscar-winning actor[for Marty] Ernest Borgnine as Lieutenant Commander Quinton McHale whose crew of "Eight-balls" as he calls them always manages to cook up schemes despite the warnings or threats of arrests made by Binghamton, who refers to them as "Pirates". Rounding out the crew are Lester A. Gruber[Carl Ballantine], Happy Haines[Gavin MacLeod], Tinker Bell[Billy Sands], Christy[Gary Vinson], Virgil Edwards[Edson Stroll] and the Prisoner Of War, Fuji[Yoshio Yoda]. Let's not forget Capt. Binghamton's second banana Lieutenant Elroy Carpenter played by Bob Hastings[who would later become Kelsey the bartender on All In The Family, where Billy Sands also appeared as Munson the cabdriver].Talk about how this series used a lot of actors in guest appearances before becoming part of television series this movie wasn't any different. In fact, two of them that have each appeared twice on the show are also featured here-George Kennedy[the future Blue Knight actor twice played Big Frenchy] appears as Henri Leclerc and Claudine Longet[a future singer appeared in two episodes in different roles] appears as Andrea Bouchard, who is the girlfriend of Leclerc, whom challenges Ensign Parker to a duel after coming to Andrea's rescue following the couple's spat.However, by this time MacLeod was off the series after losing weight but later had television successes with the Mary Tyler Moore Show[as Murray Slaughter] and The Love Boat[as Captain Merrill Stubing, talk about hitting the high seas once more]. However, the most of the most remained all four seasons of the series. When I first saw this film on the tube as a kid I was delighted, not only were the hi-jinks of the high seas funny in black and white but just as exciting in color(No reference to the Beatles' films A Hard Days Night and Help! in that regard). If you love the series, you'll love this movie as well.

This Universal Vault Series DVD release brings back fond memories of the summer of 1964 for me, when my whole family went to the local drive-in to see the full-length color film based on the popular "McHale's Navy" half-hour network TV series. Since the ABC TV series itself was broadcast in black & white (and, like most families at that time, we only had a b&w television anyway), it was a treat to see the characters and situations -- for me in particular, McHale's PT 73 PT boat -- that we were so familiar with on Tuesday nights at 8:30pm, expanded into a 90 minute color movie.As I'm sure others have mentioned while reviewing this film, it's essentially like a long, extended episode of the TV series itself. That's OK, because if you remember the series fondly, or want to see what it was all about without watching the actual b&w DVDs or YouTube clips of the half-hour shows themselves, there's no better one-shot representation of the series.The setting: the South Pacific during World War II. The plot: U.S. Navy Lt. Commander Quinton McHale (Ernest Borgnine), skipper of the PT 73, his bumbling executive officer Ensign Parker (Tim Conway), and the crew of the PT 73 have gotten themselves into debt to the local Marine contingent by over-booking the winner in a horse race already run in Australia. To complicate matters, Ensign Parker has also incurred the wrath of McHale's boss and constant nemisis, Captain Binghampton (Joe Flynn), by mistaking his snooping reconnaissance plane for a Japanese Zero and shooting it down.The film revolves around McHale and his crew scheming to stay one step ahead of Captain Binghampton and pay off the Marines -- while continuing to contribute to a local nun's orphanage -- by entering a disguised ringer of a shipwrecked champion horse in a high-stakes race on French New Caledonia, eventually jockeyed by their amiable Japanese prisoner of war, Fuji. Along the way, McHale tries to avoid marriage to an old girlfriend, Ensign Parker meets a lovely young French colonial (Claudine Longet), and the whole crew runs afoul of a blustery French businessman (George Kennedy). How the skipper and crew of the PT 73 get out of this mess -- and capture a Japanese submarine to boot -- is the rest of this entertaining and family-friendly film.

As with the TV series, this movie was not something one could say was hilarious but it was cute. The movie is exactly like an extended TV show. The entire original cast is there including the inhabitants of New Caledonia and Ensign Parker's love Yvette Gerard. The bumbling antics of the TV series are all repeated throughout the movie with Capt Binghamton always being outwitted ("why is it always me?" ... "I could just scream"). Nothing surprising but fun to watch.Note it is a DVD-R which is nothing more than putting the original VHS tape onto DVD. There are no extras, no specials and not even a title menu. Place the DVD in your player and the movie starts. When the movie is over it starts at the beginning again. But the sound and color picture quality is excellent.If you're expecting a side-ripping, ROFL movie then this will disappoint. But if you loved the original 60's TV series then this is a must-have, either for nostalgia's sake or as a collector's item.