O Baile Maluco

I have enjoyed this film for many years. Casting a film is an art in itself. And this film is a classic of casting. The Oscar-winning actor Jack Lemmon, is a perfect foil for the fussy Ernie Kovacs. Young James Darren, and Dick York, and the inimitable Mickey Rooney, all make a fine ensemble. Veteran Arthur O'Connell, and all of the rest serve up a delicious film.

This is one of the biggest sleepers of all time, and really never got the recognition that it deserved. I like to think of it as a "Proto-M*A*S*H", as it clearly presents a lunacy of a military hospital, and the goofy characters.

A precious "gem" of a film.

An easy-going bumbling Colonel commands a military hospital, the 1066th. A self-serving martinet second-in-command tries to use military regulations to tyrannize over the hospital staff. A fun-loving conniver wants to give the hospital staffers a chance to enjoy the company of the hospital's nurses while the second-in-command tries to thwart him. If Jack Lemmon and his friends had been doctors and officers, instead of enlisted personnel, the general resemblance to MASH would have been complete. When Richard Hooker's novel MASH was turned into a TV series (after passing through the movies), the writers must have been familiar with this movie. Curiouser and curiouser.

This was a screw ball comedy set within an American Army base with a hospital where the female nurses outrank the enlisted men, which plays havoc on the dating opportunities. Our hero, Private Hogan (Jack Lemmon), has an idea. He approaches a local French business woman and they strike a deal...if he and his men repair her establishment to its pre-war state, they can throw a ball for the service men and nurses there.

This becomes a crazy event where everyone is pulling together to make it happen under the radar of Captain Paul Lock (Ernie Kovacs) and then counter to Colonel Rousch's (Arthur O'Connell) plan to have his own nightclub up and running for a visit from his brother.

Lots of the usual running around by Jack Lemon and an odd romance with nurse Lt. Betty Bixby (Kathryn Grant). It was fun to see Dick York as young Corporal Bohun and the best appearance was the high energy quirky jive talking Mickey Rooney as Master Sergeant Yancy Skibo, who really pulls through for the gang in the end.

And then there is the ball, which besides Mickey Rooney is the best part of this film.

I have seen better films by all of these comedic actors, especially Jack Lemmon, which keeps this off my recommendation list unless you are collecting post WWII comedies. For me it is in the didn't hate it, but didn't love it category.

Reading these reviews were spot on while being simultaneously disconcerting. Other movies were mentioned that had influence on this one, but didn't Operation Mad Ball remind anybody besides me of Hogan's Heroes? And I'm not referencing the fact that Jack Lemmon's character was named Hogan, although this might have been the basis for the TV title.

Although the circumstances aren't quite the same (albeit they are both set in WWII), some of the dialog is exactly as I remember from the TV show. Even the sight gags and the situations are similar. Only things lacking are the Germans and the teapot.

It's a fun movie and well worth watching. I've never seen it before and just can't help comparing it to Hogan's Heroes. Mickey Rooney is a hoot!

First: The Sony movie channel has been periodically showing this, in a hilariously good, maybe even remastered transfer. Look for it.

Second, ignore the poster, the marketing of the time, even the title. It's not slapstick, no impossibly improbable stuff and really, it's more like a heist movie than a pure comedy. All machinations of some scheming lower ranks to get a party together, all within or by skirting regulations.

No physical impossibilities, no moustache twirling villains breaking the law themselves, no one runs around in a gorilla suit. It's even relatively realistic B&W.

Nothing like Bilko or so on, and all the better for it.