Saturday, June 09, 2012

Movie review - "Joe Butterfly" (1957) **

Hollywood went on an service comedy kick in the late 50s, with a whole bunch of light hearted movies (and also plays and TV shows) set in the military, featuring slightly shonky supply officers, bewildered leads, blustering officers and wacky natives: Teahouse of the August Moon, No Time for Sergeants, Mister Roberts, The Geisha Boy, Don't Go Near the Water, The Imitation General.

This one seems very much inspired by Teahouse of the August Moon, being set in post war Japan (immediately post war, i.e. 1945 even though the country doesn't seem particularly covering from war) and details the adventures of several workers at a military magazine. This is Audie Murphy's only flat out comedy but he's actually not the lead (despite his top billing) - that's actually George Nader, as the Mister Roberts-esque straight man. Murphy plays an Ensign Pulver-esque photographer who is always getting in trouble. And Burgess Meredith slants it up as a local Japanese, a la Marlon Brando. Fred Clark plays, well, Fred Clark (i.e. blustering officer) and Keenan Wynn plays, well, Keenan Wynn (troublesome officer).

There was no reason Murphy couldn't have made more comedies - he had a naive, aw-gee-shucks quality which was castable... but he'd never be special in comedies the way he would be in action movies, with all that simmering violence underneath. And he doesn't really have much material to work with here - just a guy who gets  up to some not very interesting shenanigans. It's breezy enough and is in colour and it might while away an afternoon in front of the TV if you don't get too offended by Burgess Meredith in makeup.

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