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With Wagon Master and Rio Grande, the last part of a trio of mysterious 1950 quasi-musicals. The schmo (Dan Dailey) enters with "Somebody Stole My Gal" on a trombone while Pa (William Demarest) passes the collection plate in church, Ma (Evelyn Varden) drops a coin and grabs back change. He's first to enlist after Pearl Harbor, a brass band sends him off to training and a welcome party receives him back as gunnery instructor. Grounded home while friends collect medals overseas, the would-be hero is gradually demoted to layabout, sarcasm and suspicion here come as easily as earnestness and geniality. "The war went on, I didn't." John Ford on Sturges like Wellman on Capra (Magic Town), a breezy walk around the block with melancholia popping in and out of exhilaration. A persistent theme (cf. Mister Roberts, The Long Gray Line) given a surreal treatment, the overdue combat mission has the protagonist asleep in an unmanned bomber over France. The soft-shoe of "You've Got Me This Way (Whatta Ya Gonna Do About It)" gives way to a wine-lubricated "Frère Jacques," the Resistance fighter (Corinne Calvet) with low-cut chemise and gun takes over from the wholesome sweetheart (Colleen Townsend). A hangover aboard the British torpedo boat, a trip to the Pentagon with a detour into the psycho ward, a bit of valor too hush-hush to share. The cocoon/prison of Americana is revealed in flashes, the running gag of the exhausted warrior force-fed booze builds to Dailey chocking on mother's milk. "Some way or other, I just couldn't get the hang of it." The same Pennsylvania burg would later set the stage for Groundhog Day, another Borgesian comedy. With Jimmy Lydon, Lloyd Corrigan, Mae Marsh, Charles Halton, Kenneth Tobey, and Hank Worden. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |