- Pvt. Billy Simpson
- (as James Lydon)
- Carole
- (as Elaine Davis)
- Charlie - Bartender
- (as Gene McCarthy)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe Civilian Pilot Training Program they were a part of was a real program started just prior to WW-II, although it was phased out in the summer of 1944. A number of famous pilots received their flight training through the CPTP.
- GoofsPvt. Russell Drexler [Joe Flynn] comments on the hazards of piloting gliders in combat: "The whole idea seems to be to try and crash through as many fences as you can before you burst into flames." Gliders are unpowered aircraft and carry no fuel that would burst into flames.
- Quotes
MSgt. Stanley Erlenheim: Well... it ain't been over two weeks ago since I read this article in some magazine.
Duty Sgt. Malcolm Greenbriar: What was this article on?
Duty Sgt. Malcolm Greenbriar: Intelligence?
MSgt. Stanley Erlenheim: And this article tells how these guys in G2, no matter what is their actual rank, can go around posin' as anything they want. A private in G2 can put on a general's uniform, or a general in G2 can put on a private's uniform, or anything in between.
Duty Sgt. Malcolm Greenbriar: Which do you think it is in this case?
MSgt. Stanley Erlenheim: Well... if a man is a private and he has the chance to be anything he wants, would you suppose he would go right on pretending to be a private?
Duty Sgt. Malcolm Greenbriar: Nosiree, boy. 'Cause any ordinary dogface knows what they can expect out of life... as an ordinary dogface... Nothin'! Stanley, Stanley, for the first time, I think I see what you mean. If they ain't privates masquerading as privates, then they gotta be something else masquerading as privates!
MSgt. Stanley Erlenheim: Would our colonel be so free with his car and women unless he's ranked and feels that he ain't got no choice except to grin and shut up?
Duty Sgt. Malcolm Greenbriar: Private Archie Hall is a general in G2!
- ConnectionsReferenced in Masters of Sex: Monkey Business (2015)
This is believe it or not a true story based on the memoir of screenwriter William Bowers played here by Jack Webb who produced and directed the film, on another film person, one Arch Hall, Sr. In real life Hall spent several years trying to make his son Arch Hall, Jr. a film star. He in my opinion topped Ed Wood in the making of bad films that starred his son. If what I saw in the film was any indication of what he was in real life, the senior Hall had to be one of the greatest conmen that ever lived to have wheedled out money from people to produce what he did. Such classics as Eegah and The Choppers are on his list of film credits.
Mitchum plays Hall and from the day he and Webb join the Army Air Corps, Mitchum displays a genius for conning everybody around. People do need at least one confidante in life and Webb kind of falls into the role. Around the same time there was a British film called On The Fiddle which starred a pre-James Bond Sean Connery and there is a lot of similarity.
Any film that has such funny people as Don Knotts, Joe Flynn, Harvey Lembeck,Robert Strauss and Louis Nye is definitely worth a look. None of these guys do their best work in The Last Time I Saw Archie, but still they help moves this film along, especially Lembeck and Strauss as a couple of dimwitted sergeants who are the chief victims of Mitchum's roguish ways. France Nuyen and Martha Hyer nicely decorate the film in the two female roles of size.
Production values were lacking, according to Lee Server's definitive book on Robert Mitchum it only had a four week shooting schedule and it looked like it was mostly shot on a television sound stage. Still it does give us a few chuckles.
But now after seeing this again for the first time in about 35 years and after seeing some of Arch Hall's work on screen I think there definitely is an Oscar winning film here. Johnny Depp, I hope you read this review.
- bkoganbing
- Nov 8, 2012
Details
Box office
- 1 hour 38 minutes
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