When is a farce farcical? When it is Blake Edwards’ “What Did You Do in
the War, Daddy?” Edwards got the title
from a question asked of him by his son.
Edwards had been in the Coast Guard during WWII and if he was ashamed to
answer that question, making this movie was not the solution. Edwards was coming off the underperforming
“The Great Race” and apparently decided the box office blahs were due to too
much subtlety. He was hoping to
replicate the success of “Operation Petticoat” by using the old
more-ridiculous-is-better formula. The
script was by the usually competent William Blatty, who was coming off the
hilarious “Shot in the Dark” (one of my favorite comedies). “Daddy” was shot in California where a quaint
Italian village was created for the setting.
Edwards went with a middle of the road cast of recognizable stars.
The movie is set in Sicily in
1943 during Operation Husky. Gen. Bolt
(Carroll O’Connor playing the same role as in “Kelly’s Heroes”) sends a company
commanded by the green Capt. Cash (Dick Shawn) to reconnoiter the village of
Valerno. The Americans go charging into
the village to find the citizens and Italian soldiers involved in a soccer
match. Capitano Otto (Sergeo Fantoni)
immediately surrenders and the crowd
sings “The Eyes of Texas”. Yes, it’s
that kind of movie. Otto insists on
postponing he and his men’s trip to a prison camp until the annual town
festival is finished. Only the by-the-book Cash thinks that is a bad idea. If
you get him drunk, however… Pretty soon he is
not the only one. Meanwhile, a PR Maj.
Pott (Henry Morgan) arrives to chronicle the glorious American success. He is taken captive by “Italian soldiers”,
but escapes into the catacombs beneath the town. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if he went insane and
found a gladiator suit to wear? Wait,
there’s more! When a fistfight breaks
out between the Americans and the Italians a reconnaissance plane snaps a
picture of the “battle” and Gen. Bolt smells glory. Lt. Christian (James Coburn) realizes that to
keep the farce going, they will have to stage a battle for future recon
flights. Luckily they have an enormous
supply of blanks handy. (Don’t
ask.) Everyone in the town is involved
including the prostitutes who spectate and applaude the better deaths. Don’t stop the movie at this point because
you will miss the appearance of two bumbling bank robbers, four incompetent
communists, and party pooping Nazis. And
hijinks aplenty.
“What Did You Do in the War,
Daddy?” is the kind of movie that no participant wants on their resume. Everyone embarrasses themselves except the
Italians, who were probably told it was a drama. (I apologize for that swipe at the Italian
war effort.) It is sad to see James
Coburn stuck in this. It was fortunately
a bump in his road as he made “Our Man Flint” that same year. Aldo Ray continued his career decline and
Shawn did not build on “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World” from three years
earlier. All the fault lies with Edwards
who had some ability with farces, but this one smacks of desperation. The movie degenerates from the start to where
you expect a cameo from a kitchen sink.
More is not usually better, but normally if you are going to get away
with it it would be in a movie of this type.
Unfortunately, little of the quantity is quality. The movie strains so much for laughs that
Blatty must have pulled a muscle in his brain.
It does not help that the usually reliable Henry Mancini contributes a
lame score. Everyone was off their game for this one.
There are some terrible WWII
comedies and this is one of them.
GRADE = F
