BEFORE: I forgot to mention yesterday that I think I figured out how this project would end. Note that I didn't say "WHEN", but "HOW". I found two or three films that fit together and form a block that I wouldn't mind ending on - now I just have to get there.
I haven't paid too much attention to April Fool's Day, I guess I've usually been in a chain of shark films or serial killer films and realized too late that it was Comedy Time. In 2009 my April 1 film was "The Jerk", and that seemed about right. So let's get back to basics - Goldie Hawn's coming in for a 5-day stint as the resident fool - and I don't mean to disparage here, I think she made a great career out of playing ditzy.
Linking from "Comic Book Villains", Eileen Brennan carries over.
THE PLOT: A sheltered young high society woman joins the army on a whim and finds herself in a more difficult situation than she ever expected.
AFTER: This is one of those 1970's + 80's military films that I never got around to. It was a bit of a trend, I suppose, but since I'd seen "Stripes", I never felt the need to watch this one. I don't recall this being a thing, but if you were a directionless slacker in the 1980's, or just in need of some discipline (or comedy) in your life, I guess you just enlisted.
Once Judy Benjamin shows up at camp, falsely expecting some kind of luxury hotel or vacation package, there's the requisite montage of obstacle courses and forced marches, with our heroine failing miserably, unable to swing on a rope over a water hazard or properly scale a wall. But the whole point of a montage is to show progress - where was the footage of her gradually getting better at these tasks?
Instead the film relies on a contrivance, the "war games" scenario, to allow her to accidentally succeed, or fail upwards. It works from a comic standpoint, but less successfully from a character one, where I'd prefer to see the character gain some actual skills, rather than just take advantage of the mistakes that happen to fall in her favor.
I suppose you can track the comedy/military thing back to "M*A*S*H", and perhaps even "The Dirty Dozen" before that, but somehow it got cross-pollinated with the juvenile nature of teen comedies. It's funny, I think of the notorious shower scene in "M*A*S*H", and even though I was turned on by it when I was a teen, as an adult I can't help but think of it as sexual harassment. You think about all of the women in the military who are (allegedly) raped or molested by superior officers, and suddenly that's less funny. I have to credit "Private Benjamin" for calling an officer's clumsy advances on a female underling by the proper term.
Speaking of shower pranks, there is one depicted in this film, where Benjamin puts some substance (blue fabric dye?) in her drill sergeant's showerhead. I bet a lot of hardware stores in the early 1980's got requests for that "blue stuff" and had to turn teens away. If you don't know what the substance is properly used for, or what it's called, you shouldn't be allowed to buy it. A little research tells me this is a variation on an old college prank called the "Chicken Shower", where bouillon cubes are used. Some people also swear by red Kool-Aid, but don't most people get their shower to the right temperature before stepping into it? I know I do.
NITPICK POINT: For a spoiled rich woman, Judy Benjamin sure seems to be an expert on plumbing skills, seemingly out of nowhere. Was that part of basic training?
There's a weird ending section - where Judy Benjamin opts out of the military, and falls for a philandering Italian man (which seems like it goes without saying), then wonders if she should get married again (what is this, a Woody Allen film?). I know that many people eventually leave the military and re-enter civilian life, but from a story standpoint, I wonder what was the point of putting a character through basic training and getting her to a respectable position in the army, only to put her back where she started?
Also starring Goldie Hawn (last seen in "Everyone Says I Love You"), Armand Assante (last seen in "Hoffa"), Albert Brooks (last seen in "Out of Sight"), Robert Webber, Craig T. Nelson (last seen in "The Killing Fields"), Mary Kay Place (last seen in "The Big Chill"), Harry Dean Stanton (last heard in "Rango"), Barbara Barrie, Sam Wanamaker, Hal Williams, P.J. Soles, with a cameo from Sally Kirkland.
RATING: 4 out of 10 parachutes
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