The Last Time I Saw Archie

Light, entertaining piece that oddly seems to fit both Webb and Mitchum. The scriptwriter had an excellent feel for how things worked (and still work, probably) in the Army if you know how to play the angles. Most of us who spent a few years on active duty (I spent 21 yrs) pulled a lot of these stunts, and we all knew people like Archie Hall -- and most of the other denizens of Camp Buckley.

This ain't CITIZEN KANE, but it's a lot of fun, probably a lot more so if you spent time in uniform.

No one will ever rate The Last Time I Saw Archie as one of Robert Mitchum's greatest films. But it does and Mitchum does have a certain droll quality that makes it passably amusing, at least to me.

This is believe it or not a true story based on the memoir of screenwriter William Bowers played here by Jack Webb who produced and directed the film, on another film person, one Arch Hall, Sr. In real life Hall spent several years trying to make his son Arch Hall, Jr. a film star. He in my opinion topped Ed Wood in the making of bad films that starred his son. If what I saw in the film was any indication of what he was in real life, the senior Hall had to be one of the greatest conmen that ever lived to have wheedled out money from people to produce what he did. Such classics as Eegah and The Choppers are on his list of film credits.

Mitchum plays Hall and from the day he and Webb join the Army Air Corps, Mitchum displays a genius for conning everybody around. People do need at least one confidante in life and Webb kind of falls into the role. Around the same time there was a British film called On The Fiddle which starred a pre-James Bond Sean Connery and there is a lot of similarity.

Any film that has such funny people as Don Knotts, Joe Flynn, Harvey Lembeck,Robert Strauss and Louis Nye is definitely worth a look. None of these guys do their best work in The Last Time I Saw Archie, but still they help moves this film along, especially Lembeck and Strauss as a couple of dimwitted sergeants who are the chief victims of Mitchum's roguish ways. France Nuyen and Martha Hyer nicely decorate the film in the two female roles of size.

Production values were lacking, according to Lee Server's definitive book on Robert Mitchum it only had a four week shooting schedule and it looked like it was mostly shot on a television sound stage. Still it does give us a few chuckles.

But now after seeing this again for the first time in about 35 years and after seeing some of Arch Hall's work on screen I think there definitely is an Oscar winning film here. Johnny Depp, I hope you read this review.

"Archie" stars all the really great character players from the time period. People whose names you might not know, but who's faces and the voices were quite familiar, make up the Army Air Force unit. Don Knotts had been working on the Andy Griffith show for under two years when this was released so he wasn't as well known as he would later become, Joe Flynn had been in sitcoms since they began later to appear in many Disney movies for kids, while Robert Mitchum was an A List star and Jack Webb had been on radio for 25+ years along with TV's Dragnet before producing and directing series. Webb was the director and producer of "Archie". Of the military comedies, (Francis the Talking Mule, Your in the Army/Navy Now, "Archie" would be one of the best with a decent enough story, fun actors and humorous situations, mostly based on the chiseler (Mitchum's character) and the fall guy (Webb) interacting with each other and a bunch of extremely beautiful girls. Martha Hyer plays Webb's love interest while a gorgeous Vietnamese actress plays Mitchum's steady. Neither of the two girls would appear dated by today's standards, the beauty holds out. And that is the movie, high jinks by Mitchum, as he pulls the wool over the other members in the unit with Sad Sack Webb left holding the bag, and the women. It's fun, a good escape and don't miss the airplane crash with Mitchum running out of runway, you'll die laughing.

I had to note that the title character is none other than the producer of the Bad Film classics Wild Guitar, Eegah (also director) the Thrill Killers, and the Choppers. He is also the Dad of "star" Arch Hall Jr. Another great Webb film, and the only one he did with Mitchum. Webb should be better known for his film and radio work.

By 1960, "Dragnet" had been cancelled, and so had all of Mark VII LTD's other TV series. Webb's intention was to do theatrical films from now on. Then he made this film.

"The Last Time I Saw Archie" is a series of comedy vignettes hooked on a true life situation - a stateside camp consisting of "leftovers" from a program designed to train pilots too old for combat duty during WWII. (The program was cancelled because the war was winding down.) Robert Mitchum plays Pvt. Archie Hall, a schemer who manages to convince everyone around him that he's more important than his rank indicates. Webb is Pvt. Bill Bowers (the same man who wrote the screenplay), the buddy who goes along for the ride. During the course of the film, Archie avoids all the mundane duties of military life, finds girlfriends for himself and Bowers, and secures an unrestricted pass and a private jeep.

FACTOID: The film was Webb's most expensive production; it cost about $2 million. It was also his biggest flop, grossing about $1.2 million. Webb would never again make a theatrical feature. Five years later, he'd be back to playing Sgt. Friday.