The Girl He Left Behind (1956) & Cash McCall (1960) 4 years separate these two semi-comedy/dramas that rolled off the Warner Brothers assembly line.......
They hold two things in common: they both feature the luminescent Natalie Wood in a supporting role........
And they feature poor Natalie burdened with arrogant assholes as boyfriends........
........until some last minute typing by the screenwriters renders these shmucks more palatable to both Natalie and audiences.
'The Girl He Left Behind' purports to be a 'service comedy', a shopworn genre we spoke of in our post on "Soldier In The Rain" last week.........
Unlike 'Soldier' which boldly bent the service comedy tropes to its own peculiar dramatic needs, this movie contains no such subtlety. It wants you believe it's a regulation, typical funny 'Screw-up joins the Army' laugh-a-long. It even includes those cutesy-wootsy cartoon representations of the actors while the opening credits roll.......
Don't believe the credits. As soon as they're done, the movie pulls a complete bait and switch. And its lead character, a spoiled rotten man-baby played by Tab Hunter, may be one the most obnoxious douchebags to ever front a mainstream 50's 'comedy.
An offscreen tongue-in-cheek narrator happily babbles on about the upcoming plight of Hunter, a selfish, self centered egotistical putz whose low college grades lead him straight into the Army draft........(lucky for him it's pre-Vietnam, so it isn't a potential death sentence).
We're supposed to slightly smile and shake our heads in disapproval as we watch Hunter treat his apple-pie, girl next door sweetie (Natalie Wood) with careless insensitivity........and cringe as we see him coddled beyond belief by his overbearing mother (Jessie Royce Landis doing the exact role she played for Cary Grant in "North By Northwest")
When this insufferable prick arrives at Fort Ord for his basic training, his various sargents and commanding officers (Murray Hamilton, David Jannsen, Jim Backus) treat him with an amazing amount of patience and restraint........as if forced to behave that way because they're in a service comedy. u
What Hunter really needs is a trainer like 'Full Metal Jacket's R. Lee Ermey to threaten to tear off his head and shit down his neck.
There's no traditional 'hero's journey' here, so don't even look for one. Hunter remains a jerk through the entire film..........until someone at Warner Brothers realized he needs to redeem himself before 'The End' pops up.......(how else can he win back Natalie Wood, whom he so does not deserve...)
A last minute, unbelievable redemption sequence is dropped in out of nowhere, followed by an equally ludicrous finale which finds Hunter assuming drill-sargent duties for a new batch of recruits.........give us a freakin' break already.......Zero stars (0)
4 years later in 1960's "Cash McCall", James Garner moves up the WB food chain, from playing one of Tab Hunter's fellow draftees to full leading man status and romancer of Natalie Wood.
You could think of this film as scrubbed down, heavily sanitized-for-your-protection version of Oliver Stone's 'Wall Street'.
The well-named Cash (Garner) is a wheeling dealing business buccaneer, buying up distressed, near bankrupt companies and then selling them off at a profit. As it so happens, the latest company in his crosshairs belongs to the father of the girl he briefly swept off her feet......(you guessed it....Natalie)
Unlike the Tab Hunter in "Girl He Left Behind", we're supposed to find Garner's Cash a dashing, charming fellow, even as he cutting a swath through business folk less savvy than himself. In fact, the only thing that slows down his slick wooing of Wood, is the jealous meddling of a hotel executive (Nina Foch) who's lusting after him.
And once again, an outlandish turn of plot converts Garner from a corporate gobbler to a benevolent Captain Of Industry, who's not only going to buy his future father-in-law's company but spend years and years making it grow stronger to face its future.......
Yeah.......right.
Fortunately then, in both films, the trusty WB screenwriters have rendered Natalie Wood's boyfriends, one a pampered brat and the other a financial shark acceptable to the vast movie-going audience. Since this nonsense is much easier to swallow in Garner's film than Hunter's, we'll cash in at least 2 stars (**) for 'Cash McCall'.
We won't even get into what happens to her boyfriend in 'West Side Story'.........
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