Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came? (1970)

          Partly an antiwar film reflecting the counterculture perspective and partly a squaresville pro-military picture promulgating Greatest Generation attitudes, the misshapen comedy/drama Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came? depicts an explosive conflict between the soldiers occupying a U.S. Army base and the citizens of the hick town neighboring the base. The movie features myriad subplots and several principal characters, so for about the first hour of the film’s running time, it’s hard to tell who or what the story is about. Once things come into focus—or at least as much so as they ever do, which is not a lot—the sum is less than the parts. Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came? includes some amusing performances, as well as fine production values and fleeting passages of snappy dialogue, but the script is simultaneously overpopulated and underdeveloped. Interesting ideas fade into the ether, silly tropes rise to the fore, and it all congeals into a kind of cinematic sludge.

          The basic gist is that a career soldier named Officer Michael Nace (Brian Keith) gets tasked with handling community relations between the base and the town. That’s easier said than done, because troublemaking Army personnel including drunken womanizer Sergeant Shannon Gambroni (Tony Curtis) have made enemies of the town’s sadistic top cop, Sheriff Harve (Ernest Borgnine). As the film progresses, tensions between citizens and soldiers grow worse and worse, eventually inspiring Mace to lead an armed assault on the town. The town fights back not just with police but also with a private militia funded and overseen by megalomaniacal idiot Billy Joe Davis (Tom Ewell).

          This short synopsis excludes easily half of the film’s narrative threads, because characters played by Don Ameche, Bradford Dillman, Ivan Dixon, and Suzanne Pleshette—among others—also have significant amounts of screen time. Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came? is such a mess that it’s not worth expressing frustration that certain elements almost work. Borgnine adds another scenery-chewing monster to his gallery of screen villains, and Keith is entertainingly grumpy, but their efforts are stymied by the general formlessness. As Borgnine says in his autobiography, “We had a lot of fun doing it and I got a paycheck, even though it turned out terrible.”

Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came?: FUNKY

Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971)

          Recognizing that there was still an audience for the brand of smart-alecky Old West humor he perfected on the 1957–1962 TV series Maverick, leading man James Garner dove back into cowboy comedy with Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969), a harmless romp about an opportunistic quick-draw artist who becomes the lawman in a frontier town, despite his frequent claims that he’s just passing through. The movie didn’t leave much room for a sequel, since the final scene explained how the characters’ lives turned out, so Garner (whose company produced Sheriff and its sequel) took a novel route—he commissioned an entirely new story, with a fresh set of characters, but then used a similar title and much of the original film’s supporting cast, thereby promising audiences they’d get more of the same. This type of quasi-continuation was not unprecedented, particularly in family movies, because Disney used this technique to elongate several of its live-action franchises, and, indeed, Support Your Local Gunfighter is a G-rated trifle in the Disney vein (although it was a United Artists release).

          Garner plays Latigo Smith, a gambler on the run from a romantic entanglement with an overbearing madam. Hiding out in a mining town, Latigo runs various schemes—e.g., posing as the business representative for a gunfighter (Jack Elam) who isn’t really a gunfighter—but mostly he gets into harmless high jinks with colorful locals. The picture is chipper and fast-paced, with wall-to-wall cartoony music, and veteran character players including Henry Jones, Harry Morgan, and Dub Taylor ensure that everything feels safe and predictable. James Edward Grant’s script has a few witty lines, but the jokes are mostly of the painfully obvious variety. Case in point: The local vet (Taylor) indicates that his current patients are donkeys and says, “You got a pain in the ass, you come see Doc Schultz!” Leading lady Suzanne Pleshette grumbles her way through a drab performance as a tomboy, and Elam’s comedy chops mollify the fact that he’s playing yet another amiable cow-town grotesque. As for the star, Garner’s charm is peerless as always. Unfortunately, there’s not much difference between this picture and an average Maverick episode.

Support Your Local Gunfighter: FUNKY

Hot Stuff (1979)

          Rotund comedian Dom DeLuise could be hilarious in the right situations, whether he was cutting up with buddy Burt Reynolds on The Tonight Show or mugging in outrageous Mel Brooks movies. In the wrong situations, however, he was prone to cartoonish behavior like double-takes and pratfalls. In that context, it’s interesting to watch Hot Stuff, the only theatrical feature DeLuise directed, because, in theory, his performance in the picture offers a pure demonstration of his idea of comedy; no one guided DeLuise except DeLuise himself. Therefore, it’s a bummer to report that he delivers pretty much the same broad clowning here that he did elsewhere. It turns out DeLuise was simply one of those amiable performers best appreciated in small doses.

          As for the movie itself Hot Stuff is very silly and not nearly as funny as it might have been. The script, co-written by veteran crime scribe Donald E. Westlake, has a fun idea: Four Miami cops set up a fencing operation to trap thieves. DeLuise plays Ernie, a nervous detective just shy of retirement, and country singer-turned-actor Jerry Reed plays Doug, his good-ol’-boy partner. Suzanne Pleshette plays Louise, a cop from another precinct who joins forces with the boys (and becomes Doug’s love interest). Together with a fourth cop (Luis Avalos), they rig a borrowed storefront with video equipment and lure unsuspecting criminals by paying top dollar for stolen loot. (The great Ossie Davis is wasted in a trite supporting role as their long-suffering commander.)

          Yet, instead of the fraught predicaments one might expect from a story about police officers working undercover, Hot Stuff feels like a variety show, with the cops holding court in the storefront while a string of low-rent comedians enter and exit the scene, giving mini-performances as oddball crooks. At one point, towering funnyman Pat McCormick literally walks into the storefront and drops a string of lame one-liners, stopping just short of telling the police to tip their waitresses and try the veal. The episodic nature of the picture is ameliorated somewhat by a couple of chase scene/shootouts and by a subplot about the Mafia mistaking the cops for competitors.

          A few of the bits are clever, like the finale in which the cops stage a spectacular mass arrest (which rings true with stories from the annals of real-life sting operations). However, the movie spends way too much time on Gong Show­-grade comedians, to say nothing of inanity like a pie fight. Hot Stuff is watchable, but it’s not for discerning viewers. (Available through Columbia Screen Classics via WarnerArchive.com)

Hot Stuff: FUNKY