Planqué malgré lui

I have seen this film 55 years ago. My brother and I found it excellent, with natural acting actors and plenty of fine humor. Years later I always remembered with pleasure some parts of it, but I didn't remember neither the original name, nor the director. Recently, researching John Fords films I find this site. Trying to find more films from one of my preferred directors. I read about ¨When Willy come marching home". It was amazing as I realized that this was the Film I never dreamed to find again. I cannot remember so much to be sure that my recollections are correct. I need to see this film again in order to do a more exact comment. During all this years I have seen thousands of films. If "When Willy come marching home" let such an impression on me during all this time, I believed it should be a very good one.

Gerardo Arias

I saw this movie for the first time at 2:30 AM on TCM and loved it. It was a little hard to follow, not seeming like a comedy or drama, but it showed it's true color quickly, and was great. Dan Daley was fabulous as the somewhat goofy GI perpetually stuck assigned to his hometown, yet wanting to go overseas, and Corinne Calvet WOW! What a babe! And the actress who played his girlfriend-also WOW! The whole cast was great, and the plot funny and workable, once you give it a chance. I can't wait to get this one on DVD, so I can see Vera Miles, another super-babe, in her first, if brief movie role. See this one if and when you can, it's worth the time!!!

This unjustly neglected comedy is a variation on Preston Sturges's HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO. The first half, while well-acted and fluently directed, suffers from the comparison, especially with Sturges regular William Demarest playing a major role. However, about halfway through, the plot takes an original and unexpected twist, revealing that the first part was actually an ironic set-up for something funnier. Dan Dailey is fine as the endlessly frustrated soldier, Corinne Calvet looks absolutely stunning, and John Ford keeps everything moving.

It was very hard to make a good comedy about such a tragic event as WW 2, but this film succeeds at it, somehow. With a wonderful performance by leading man, Dan Dailey, and great supporting roles by a bevy of fine B actors, the film is even superior to Hail the Conquering Hero. I will not go into the convoluted, but hilarious, plot of the film, but suffice it to say, the movie does not take off for the first twenty minutes or so. Be patient; it will go from zero to sixty in the final fifty minutes. Be sure to catch this underrated gem of a soldier who has trouble getting into action, and even more trouble getting out of it.

Nobody can say that this is a masterpiece, because this picture was made by John Ford. And, as everyone knows, John Ford can't make a good comedy... This is all rubbish!! This is a good entertaining fordian reflexion about war, patriotism and life (in the army or in a provincial town). Ford is not an aggressive filmmaker like could have been Sturges (by the way, I love Sturges too, but for different reasons), and his look at his characters is tender, full of compassion and amusement, even if the main subject (war) is not funny, a fact which is here quite explicit. Ford knows the weakness points of his compatriots, but denounces them without anger. He is part of America, and is clever enough to know it and not to take everything too seriously. Any Ford's movie is, in some way or another, a comedy. That's his stuff, and even his most somber dramas are kind of comedies. See the cavalry trilogy, or even "how green...": in every Ford movie a character (most often, several) plays a funny-tender part. That's Ford's universe, with his highlights and his lousy pictures. This one is quite in the middle, so definitely worth watching!!!