Flag Day

I remember watching Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958) on tv when I was a kid, at home sick. So I queued it up.

It stars Paul Newman as harried Connecticut suburbanite who can’t get a drink on the club car on the way home. Then his wife, Joanne Woodward, is too busy to pick him up at the station, so his predatory neighbor, Joan Collins, gives him a ride. He gets home and wants a little romance with Woodward, but between the kids and her committee work, she doesn't have any time for him. Just when he has gotten her to agree to take a little time, she gets roped into a new cause - the Army is building a Top Secret installation in their town. So she volunteers to lead the opposition to the installation, and volunteers him to go to Washington to fight the Army.

That's the setup. Busybody housewives on social improvement committees, sexpot neighbors, and the peacetime army. The Army is represented by General Gale Gordon and the captain in charge of the top secret project, Jack Carson (who I always get mixed up with Jack Haley) - two very funny character actors. Directed by classic screwball director Leo McCarey, it should be funny - and there are some great scenes. Newman and Collins having a little get-together that ends with him literally swinging from the chandelier, for instance. Who knew Joan Collins was so good at physical comedy?

But Paul Newman really isn't, at least as far as I can tell. Or maybe it's the mismatch of screwball, 60s sex comedy and comedy of suburban manners that makes it less than completely satisfying.

However, on a personal note, Ms. Spenser (Dr. Spenser, in fact) is a part-time college lecturer, and of course winds up working on it more than full time, to the point where she rarely gets to knock off early on a weekend even. So I got to rib her a lot about her being too busy for romance. But I did not joke about finding my own Joan Collins.

In conclusion, it turns out the movie that I saw on tv when I was a kid was Follow Me, Boys, a Fred MacMurray Disney film, which is more kid appropriate.