Operation Mad Ball ** (1957, Jack Lemmon, , Ernie Kovacs, Mickey Rooney, Kathryn Grant, Dick York, James Darren, Arthur O’Connell, Roger Smith) – Classic Movie Review 6237

Jack Lemmon stars as US Army hospital Private Hogan in director Richard Quine’s slightly flat, faded and dated 1957 farce about American soldiers in post-World war Two France trying to meet some protected French maidens by inviting them to a secret dance party to toast the shutdown of a US army hospital over there.

There are plenty of moments of humour along the way, but the bits in between the laughs and the longueurs in the script drag it down and it all goes on too long, running 105 minutes when 90 minutes would be better.

With script-writers Arthur Carter, Jed Harris and Blake Edwards obviously struggling to come up with a good screenplay based on a stage play by Arthur Carter, this forgotten item is not one of Lemmon’s zestiest comedies. It has a stale air of a dull time in the mid-Fifties. But it is good to see the youngish Lemmon at work – he was already 32.

Ernie Kovacs co-stars as stickler Captain Locke, Kathryn Grant plays beautiful nurse Lieutenant Betty Bixby and Dick York (Darrin Stephens in TV’s Bewitched) has a lot to do as Corporal Bohun, who stages the dance. It also stars Mickey Rooney, James Darren, Arthur O’Connell and Roger Smith.

Also in the cast are William Leslie, Sheridan Comerate, L Q Jones, Dick Crockett, William Hickey, Roy Jenson, Paul Picerni, Otto Reichow and Bebe Allen.

It is shot in black and white by Charles Lawton Jr, produced by Jed Harris, scored by George Duning and designed by Robert F Boyle.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6237

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