McHale's Navy Joins The Air Force, Hilarious!

"McHale's Navy Joins The Air Force" is absolutely hilarious. If you have never seen this movie, please do so. This 1965 movie, filled with slapstick and filmed in color, was based on the television series "McHale's Navy" (which was in black and white) and was simply like an extended episode of the show, except that it focused on the show's Ensign Parker, played by suburban Cleveland native Tim Conway,* and Captain Wallace Binghamton, played by Youngstown, Ohio native Joe Flynn. When the television series was in the planning, there is no question the producer wanted a name star for the show, and Ernest Borgnine was that star. Borgnine was an Academy Award winner in 1955 for his performance in the movie, "Marty." Borgnine, who served in the U.S. Navy for about a decade, including during World War Two, was cast as Lt. Commander Quinton McHale, the commander of PT 73.** Once the series started, the public latched onto Tim Conway and Joe Flynn, both of whom became well known stars because of the show, overshadowing Ernest Borgnine's role as the PT boat's skipper. "McHale's Navy Joins the Air Force" simply demonstrates that fact, as Borgnine is totally absent from the movie. Borgnine was busy doing a part in another movie, but he also claimed that McHale's Navy producer, Edward Montagne, didn't want to pay him to do the movie, to hold down costs. In the movie, McHale is said to be away, and that Ensign Parker is in charge of the boat and crew.

Like the then ongoing television series, the movie is set in the South Pacific during World War Two. Binghamton has the PT 73 take him to a military conference in Australia, and the crew sees the chance to go to Australia as an opportunity to party. Binghamton, however, confines the crew to their PT boat while he attends the conference, and he sends the Naval Regulations quoting Parker to copy those regulations 100 times. With Binghamton gone and Parker below deck, the crew makes a deal with the crew of a Russian freighter docked next to them, so they can go into town and party. They swap uniforms with the Russians and off they go into town. The Russians get Ensign Parker drunk, dressed in a Russian navy uniform and take him into town. The problem is, two Russian NKVD agents (secret police), are looking to arrest any Russian AWOL*** military personnel. One of the PT 73's crew finds Parker and helps him elude the NKVD agents. They end up in the locker room of an athletic center for officers, where, unknown to them, Lieutenant Harkness (played by Ted Bessell, who later played the boyfriend of Marlo Thomas in the series, "That Girl"), the son of an American Army Air Force general (played by Tom Tully),**** is preparing to go see his father. The crew member ditches Parker's Russian uniform and dresses him in the uniform of the general's son, who left his uniform hanging on his locker while he showered and shaved. When the lieutenant wants to report the theft of his uniform to the front desk, he first puts on the Russian naval uniform to make himself decent. The NKVD agents nab him with the help of Captain Binghamton, who is also using the facility to clean up, and the agents take the lieutenant to the Russian ship, which will be leaving to go back to Vladivostok, Russia. Too late, Binghamton, accompanied by his aide, Lieutenant Elroy Carpenter, played by Bob Hastings (he later played bar owner "Kelsey" on "All in the Family"), finds the name of Lieutenant Harkness on a toiletry kit, and he knows he has helped to turn the general's son over to the Russians, and that he needs to find him.

In the meantime, Parker, still feeling no pain from his drinking bout with the Russians, comes up missing. When Binghamton returns to the PT 73, he finds the Russian ship, with Lieutenant Harkness aboard, has already sailed. He plans to catch up to the Russians to get the lieutenant back, but just then, General Harkness shows up looking for his son, but he finds that Binghamton has not yet left Australia for the Army Air base, where he had been ordered during the military conference. The general orders him to leave immediately, so Binghamton has to abandon the trip to free Lieutenant Harkness from the Russian ship. When Binghamton, Carpenter and the PT 73 arrive at the air base, Binghamton is picked up to be taken to the base office, but the driver also tells him he is to stop to pick up Lieutenant Harkness, who just flew in, and who will be Binghamton's liaison officer. Off of one of the planes comes Parker, still in the lieutenant's uniform and sick with a hangover. The plane's pilot assumes Parker is Lieutenant Harkness, and when a colonel, the base commander pulls up, Binghamton introduces Parker as the lieutenant. The colonel, who has never met Harkness, proceeds to tell "Harkness" he has been promoted to captain.

Parker may be dressed as Captain Harkness, but he's still bungling Ensign Parker, and when he is given his barrack's and room numbers, he gets the numbers mixed up and and he ends up in the women's barracks! In an absolutely hysterically funny scene, when one of the women sees him, she screams, "Man in the barracks," bringing Parker to yell the same thing! The women come running from their rooms, but Parker finally gets away, although not without first saying, "If my mother ever finds out...." Outside the barracks he immediately gets into another problem with one of the WACs (WAC=Women's Army Corps), who almost runs over him in her jeep. The two go to the air base control tower to deliver some papers, but the officer there thinks the two are on a romantic escapade, so he leaves them alone. Parker accidentally sets off the alarm siren, sending fighter planes into the night sky. It turns out, the planes intercept a Japanese air attack, and Parker...ah, I mean, Harkness, is promoted to major! While all of this is going on, the real Harkness has jumped overboard from the Russian ship and made it to an island, where he steals a boat from some angry natives. 

Binghamton sends Carpenter back to the PT 73 to get it underway in finding the Russian ship. Next, Parker must take a flight simulator test in a trainer and Binghamton goes with him. While the two are inside the trainer, a crew shows up to transport the trainer elsewhere for repairs, so they load it onto a truck and off it goes. The rough road causes the trainer to fall off of the truck and into the ocean. Parker and Binghamton are stunned to find they are no longer in the base training facility, bringing Binghamton to keep saying, "Link trainers can't fly." The two head back to the base and to the base hospital, where they see General Harkness! Binghamton hides in a closet and Parker dashes into a room, where he disguises himself as a nurse. Binghamton ends up falling out of the closet and the doctor asks the nearby "nurse" (actually Parker) to help. Parker accidentally injects both the doctor and Binghamton with a strong sedative, knocking them out. Parker changes back into the uniform of Harkness and heads back to PT 73, but a driver shows up to take him to a waiting plane. It turns out, the base commander is going to send him to see his dad, the general, on another island, but Major Harkness will act as the cargo plane's navigator, a task for which Parker has absolutely no clue. Binghamton catches up to Parker as he boards the cargo plane and here we go. A jeep is strapped in as part of the cargo being transported.

During the flight, the pilot periodically asks for the plane's course, and Parker makes up a number, bringing the pilot to adjust the plane by making some sharp turns, which causes some of the cargo to break loose and rip off the exit door. Another sharp course change sets the jeep to rolling around and Parker gets into the driver's seat to try to use the brakes. Binghamton climbs into the passenger seat, but the jeep's momentum carries it out the door, and leaves it suspended by rope underneath the plane. Parker starts blowing the horn and the pilot looks out the window and then tells the co-pilot that there is a jeep trying to pass them. Dingy Parker even uses hand signals to indicate turns.***** When Parker and Binghamton look down at the Pacific, they see the Japanese fleet. As the plane heads in for a landing, it passes over the real Major Harness, who is paddling along in the native boat. The American military commanders are all conferring about the whereabouts of the Japanese ships, which they have not been able to locate. As the plane sweeps in, the rope lets go and the jeep falls in through the roof of the conference room. Parker tells General Harness about the Japanese fleet and the orders are given to strike. Into the conference room comes Major Harness, all grimy from his ordeal, only to be scoffed at by his father, who thinks his son has been out partying.

The scene shifts to Washington DC, some time later, where President Roosevelt is about to honor Parker for providing the information about the Japanese fleet. Parker gets credit, because he was the navigator of the plane! As Binghamton fumes about Parker's honor, Parker is asked to say a few words to test the microphones. He imitates the voice of President Roosevelt, using FDR's common opening, "My friends..." Binghamton goes berserk, as he thinks Parker has now been made president of the United States.

* Tim Conway's real first name was Thomas/Tom, but there was already an actor by that name, so he chose "Tim" for his professional name. By the way, for you movie experts, "Tom Conway" was the stage name of Thomas/Tom Sanders, the brother of well known actor George Sanders, and yes, the real family name was Sanders.

** PT=Patrol Torpedo

*** AWOL=away without leave

**** The Air Force was part of the US Army in those times.

***** Back in perhaps the late 1970s or early 1980s, this movie was on when my mother was visiting me. My mother was not really much for slapstick kind of comedy, but when that jeep was suspended under the plane and Parker kept honking the horn and using hand signals, she laughed as hard as I had ever seen her laugh. 

Photo is of the 2016 Shout! Factory DVD with both McHale's Navy movies

WORD HISTORY:
Deep/Depth-This word, distantly related to "dip," and commonly used as an adjective, as a noun (also rendered in noun form, in the expanded forms "deepness" and "depth"), and as an adverb, usually as "deeply," goes back to Indo European "dheub," which meant, "deep, hollow." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "deupaz," meaning, "deep," which gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "deop," with the meaning "deep," but with a number of figurative meanings, like, "earnest," "mysterious" and "stern." The noun form was also "deop," meaning, "deepness, depth." This then became "dep(e)," before the modern form. Forms in the other Germanic relatives: German has the adjective "tief"  (deep, also the adverbial "deeply"), the nouns "(das) Tief" (weather terminology "a low"), "(die) Tiefe" ("depth, deepness"); Low German Saxon "deep" (adjective) and "Deep" (noun); Dutch "diep" (adjective/adverb), "diepte" ^^ (noun: depth/deepness); West Frisian "djip" (adjective), "djipte" ^^ (noun: depth, deepness); Danish has "dyb" (adjective) and "dyb/dybde"^^ (noun: depth, deepness); Norwegian has "dyp" (adjective) and "dybde"^^ (noun: deep, deepness); Icelandic has "djúpur" (adjective) and "dýpt" (noun: depth, deepness); Swedish has "djup" (adjective) and "djup" (noun: depth, deepness), but they also have "djuphet,"^^ which now seems to be somewhat antiquated.  

^ Long ago many of the high Germanic dialects underwent a "sound shift," where the "d" in many other Germanic dialects often became "t" and "p" often became "f;" thus, modern standard German, which grew from middle high German dialects, "tief."

^^ Technically, these forms correspond to English "depth," which is why they have the "te," "de" and "het" endings (German also once had "Tiefte"="depth"), just as English has "dep" + "th," for "depth" (it was actually spelled "depthe," previously). The English suffixes "-th" and "-t," and the "te," "de" and "het" suffixes in other Germanic languages, comes from Old Germanic "itho," which came from Indo European "ita."