The
McHale Mob
McHale’s Navy
The inspiration
for Star Trek’s “A Piece of the Action”. Chief Urulu
sees a gangster picture on McHale’s Island (“Cagney” and his
boss rub each other out), “Urulu really dig that kinda jazz, Tough Tony
not work for peanuts, take back fruit mash, go into booze racket.” He
sets up a speakeasy.
Urulu never
signed a treaty for the island, Binghamton is ordered to rectify the oversight.
The evil genius that is Capt. Binghamton worms a refusal from the chief, McHale
and his men will be forced onto the base under his careful supervision,
“pow!”
The crew in mufti
threaten to give Urulu cement overshoes. Adm. Rogers plays along with the gag,
Binghamton falls in and has to be carved out of his concrete block.
A Star Falls on Taratupa
McHale’s Navy
The crew get Mimi
St. Clair (Jean Hale) the Hollywood actress to send them two hundred 8 x 10
glossies of her celestial self. The simple plan is to have Fuji lipstick each
one, a crewman adds a personal autographed note from the star and voilà,
two hundred bucks clear profit.
Their request
arrives just when Mimi is pining away in Hollywood far from the theaters of war
that see Grable’s legs atop a tank hoofing it for Gen. Patton and his
men.
A Nip in Time
McHale’s Navy
Like Debussy spitting
in the censers, Fuji appears as Admiral Fujiwara of the Imperial Navy (with
Parker in tow as fellow officer and interpreter) to spike a German patrol and
liberate the crew, out collecting war souvenirs in an Italian village.
Col. Harrigan, a
collector of souvenirs himself, magnanimously allows the heroic PT men to keep
their contraband. German prisoners are shepherded into detainment wearing only
their long woolen underwear.
Giuseppe McHale
McHale’s Navy
Capt. Binghamton
is ordered on a rest cure after this hallucination, another McHale with a baby
picture seeking il
suo cugino.
“Busted
down to an Italian fisherman” is Tinker’s droll remark.
Giuseppe’s
ebullience and size get him aboard the admirable 73 against the protestations
of the crew, whence the confusion.
Seeing Borgnine
in Italian is like undubbed Fellini or Leone or Antonioni.
The Bald-Headed Contessa
McHale’s Navy
Shy Ensign Parker
wears the dress of Contessa Francesca D’Arezzi
to evade a local girl’s baciami at a
party in a boarded-up villa where the crew is resting on a hike ordered by
Captain Binghamton away from the banquet he is preparing for General Bronson.
Vino, Vino, Who’s Got the Vino?
McHale’s Navy
It’s sunk
by the Germans just off the beach, the world-famous Chianti of Voltafiore.
Captain Binghamton wants to butter up General Bronson with it, the mayor
hasn’t a clue, Ensign Parker falls overboard and
snags it.
Blitzkrieg at
McHale’s Beach
McHale’s Navy
Captain
Binghamton ensconced at City Hall is urged by Colonel Harrigan to take in
McHale and his crew to improve morale, the colonel so much admires their
seaside bivouac. Fuji’s English accent as Admiral Smythe
Smythe of the Royal Navy gets past Binghamton on the
telephone to warn McHale of the treachery, the captain also learns he’s
been manipulated, in German uniforms two separate raids are launched on the
beach.
The Wacky WAC
McHale’s Navy
She goes AWOL for
her lover, Sgt. Clancy, Col. Harrigan’s driver. The colonel is invited to
lecture McHale and his crew on Army ordnance. The WAC corporal in Italian
village dress signals to Clancy, Binghamton arrests her as a spy.
Parker is
outfitted in her uniform as a WAC MP and liberates her from the Palazzo Municipale but is joined by real WAC MPs,
the three girls share a room in the palace but slip out for a triple-date with
the men.
La Dolce 73
McHale’s Navy
A home movie of
Binghamton fighting off Nazis played by McHale and the crew of PT 73 in
captured German uniforms is filmed by Lt. Carpenter and sent by the captain to
Mrs. Binghamton.
A second film of
Binghamton raiding the cast party is edited to show Binghamton solo at the
orgy, and sent to a Congresswoman on tour.
She is persuaded
to act in a third film on the hazards of fraternization, playing a “woman
of experience” to Binghamton’s naïve officer. The director is
Federico Parchini, Ens. Parker.
McHale’s Country
Club Caper
McHale’s Navy
Col. Harrigan and
Capt. Binghamton squabble over a gym to impress the General. Harrigan
commandeers the athletic equipment, Binghamton is left
with golf clubs.
Count Guido Panzini, “architect to the rich”, agrees to
build a golf course in two weeks and absconds with the recreation funds.
A signboard and a
tee-off are confiscated by Harrigan as Army property, put there by McHale and
his men for just this purpose, behind it all there is
swamp.
Lt. Carpenter
arrests Panzini, the transfer is nearly spoiled, the
con man is made to play Binghamton’s physician. The Navy departs, the
Army plays through.
36-24-73
McHale’s Navy
A
salami in the filing cabinet, a
laundry list instead of spare parts, Adm. Ennis sends a WAVE to sort out Capt.
Binghamton’s files. She is impervious even to Virgil’s charms.
She shares with
Ens. Parker the romance of regulations.
The crew must pay
the damages for Giuseppe’s fishing boat, but their beauty contest with
local talent is canceled as fraternization. The WAVE ensign, bested in citation
of regs by Parker, volunteers her unit. McHale
invites Adm. Ennis to judge.
“Enough
with the regulations,” says the winner as she gives her ensign a kiss.
Capt. Binghamton gnaws his hat in fury.
Little Red Riding Doctor
McHale’s Navy
The military
governor of Voltafiore is not elected king for the festival day of its
five-hundredth year in 1944, the honor goes to McHale.
A visiting Army
psychiatrist on the lookout for combat fatigue is offered the crew of PT 73
after days and nights of constant patrol duty, but doesn’t take the bait.
Cappuccetto Rosso for the
kiddies is the crew’s festival offering, Binghamton has them play it in a
field for Special Services. The psychiatrist carts them away.
The king asks for
a recount. The psychiatrist is waylaid and costumed as Red Riding Hood, his
superior finds him thus, and Binghamton insisting he is the king. Both are
escorted to a hospital ship.
Binghamton rows
back in a life raft, the crew repair to a “little red brick house”,
to change the metaphor.
Who Was That German I Saw
You With?
McHale’s Navy
Binghamton and Parker
are kidnapped by Nazi soldiers in U.S. sailor uniforms and held at gunpoint
under the bright sun of the Voltafiore town square. A visiting war photographer
is disgusted by the sight of McHale and his crew driving up thoroughly drunk, Globe
has him there to do a feature on PT 73, for which reason “Killer”
Wally Binghamton with his brace of pearl-handled silver sidearms dispatched
them out on patrol, leaving their tents to be ransacked by a lost German unit
with a plan for escape.
On McHale’s
signal, he and his perfectly sober men back from patrol disarm the Nazis in a
trice. This picture makes the cover, a print of Binghamton fainting persuades
him to join the luau.
The Holy War Raid
The Rat Patrol
Hauptmann
Dietrich has in operation a decisive plan not merely to defeat the patrol once
and for all, but to do so strategically for the German campaign.
A faux patrol
under the command of Dietrich (wearing the uniform of an American colonel and
leading German troops in GI gear) strikes in the middle of prayers to kidnap an
Arab holy man, Marabout (Abraham Sofaer). He is to be liberated by German
forces, thus winning an Arab army to the Nazi cause.
The genuine
patrol is captured at once by Arabs on horseback and shown the ransom note.
Moffitt traces the stone to a nearby formation, he and Troy ride Arab horses to
within sight of Dietrich’s phony American base.
Marabout is
freed, Dietrich is unruffled. He sets out for the Arab encampment ahead of Troy
and Moffitt, dismisses a diversionary call from the latter. “His German
isn’t as good as my English.”
Hitchcock and
Pettigrew are being held by the Arabs, “food for jackals” by
sundown. Troy and Moffitt have one of Dietrich’s ersatz jeeps.
“We’re
getting low on saints these days,” Sgt. Troy tells Marabout, restored to
his people, “we have to protect the ones we have.” The Arab
replies, “Saints take many forms.”
“Your
halo’s on crooked, Sarge,” says Pettigrew.