The Secret War of Jackie's Girls (1980) (TV)

User Rating:

4.4/10   

Director:

Gordon Hessler

Writers:

Ann Donahue (idea)
D. Guthrie (teleplay)

Release Date:

29 November 1980 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama

Plot Keywords:

Secret Mission | WWII | England | Aviator | Helicopter

Cast

Lee Purcell	...	Casey McCann
Ann Dusenberry	...	Donna
Tracy Brooks Swope	...	Zimmy
Dee Wallace	...	Maxine
Caroline Smith	...	Patti
John Reilly	...	Russ
Sheila MacRae	...	Phyllis
Mariette Hartley	...	Jackie
Don Knight
Ben Murphy	...	Buck
Marilyn Chris	...	Mabel
Curt Lowens	...	Dr. Kruger
Henry Olek	...	Dieter
Edward Bell	...	Brewer
Frank M. Benard	...	Victor (as Francois-Marie Benard)

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Penthouse Productions

Compelling

Fantastic. I came across this gem trawling through the English terrestrial channels and was rewarded by ( channel )Five in time honoured style. The story of a crack team of flying nurses in WW2 ( Each with disparate and colourful personality traits: one's a tomboy, one's a goldigger, one has non specific fatal disease etc And what fantastic property this would make for Quentin Tarantino! )the eponymous Jackie dies fairly early in the film consolidating the group behind Casey, a beautiful woman with a fatal flaw:she cant smile. This is never mentioned in the script but becomes horribly evident as she flirts woodenly with a disollute Ryan O Neale lookalike, grimacing like a ventriloquists dummy throughout.

Theres a surprising amount of helicopter flying around a surprisingly dusty, mountainous and ravine strewn English landscape and an almost unbelievable amount of time spent in a subterraneean London pub. I would estimate fully a third of the film is spent braying Cole Porter songs distractedly around a battered upright. The pub is the heart of the film and is populated only by ex pat Americans and French counts. It is staffed solely by a blousy Dickensian Cockney Sparrah who scat sings ( in both senses of the word ) music hall tunes whilst handing out apparantly gratis treble whiskies.

You WILL want to watch this. You will be disappointed. It looks like an illadvised pilot episode padded out with excess M*A*S*H title footage. And frankly I love that. I live in London. What are the alternatives.