L'île des sans soucis

I just don't know what movie these other reviewers saw, but the movie I saw had no jokes at all. It had the set ups for jokes and people who can certainly be funny, Kovacs and Shawn for just two, but they aren't funny here. A complete waste of your time and as far as paying money for it, absolutely out of the question. It does not make fun of bureaucracy in the military. MASH makes fun of that. This just drones on and on with stupid situation after stupid situation. I wanted another "Operation Mad Ball", so believe me I get wacky military humor, that movie had it, this movie does not. Idiotic in tone, concept and delivery. I really hated this movie. No wonder it was buried on Fox Movie Channel. I will not miss Fox Movie Channel. There is a reason that you never hear of these movies.

"Wake Me When It's Over," as another reviewer commented, is an apt title for this film. Implying, in this case, that this film might be a challenge to stay awake while watching. Well, the idea for the plot surely is okay, but something with various complicated parts that this has needed a great script, excellent direction and a cast to deliver. The cast is so-so and mixed, but the screenplay for this film, and the writing, are poor.

So, what could have been a very good post-war comedy, turns out to be a weak attempt at a farce that just doesn't deliver. Hollywood was making some very good light comedies about military and government service during the 1950s and early 1960s, but this isn't one of them. I didn't read the novel the film is based on, but would guess it must be much better than this film. My five stars are for the efforts of some of the cast.

Not even most veterans or military service and war film buffs are likely to think much of this film.

The film parallels the book with a few risqué exceptions. What is unique is that even though major actors were picked for the movie they could not be closer to the character description from the 1959 book of the same name by Howard Singer.

Russ is a schnook. Therefore if something can go wrong it will. His wife is into insurance of all kinds. She wants him to get his GI insurance while he can. After she forces him to apply (schnook), he must explain that he has two serial numbers (schnook). When he was shot down over Germany he was presumed dead and needed a second number to get discharged (schnook). So naturally realizing that the (schnook) being in the service only one-day on the second serial number, is called up to finish his time.

He ends up on an island in the middle of the Sea of Japan. There he has a revelation that saves his sanity and that of 400 other servicemen also assigned to this remote outpost. A plan, so brilliant that I am not about to tell you what it is or how it is executed.

In the book the plan cured his shnookyness; in the movie, it takes a trial. The cast includes Dick Shawn as the schnook and Ernie Kovacs as his commander and hotshot fighter pilot.

I can relate to this as I also have two serial numbers. Luckily, they were for six completed years each.

What do you get when you combine two of the funniest stars who ever lived (Dick Shawn and Ernie Kovaks), with one hilarious scene by Don Knotts? Well, apparently you get a wacky knock-off of the (to me, more boring) "Teahouse of the August Moon," with army people building a hot springs resort hotel with surplus army equipment. Does it work?

First of all, it needs to be a whole lot wackier, considering the cast. Dick Shawn might've made it so if they'd turned him loose, but those were the days before Monty Python changed the face of comedy. Back then, comedies were thought to work when funny men were plugged into them, regardless of the material.

Is it worth watching? Only if you accept it for what it is, made in those far-flung days of the past, when movies were slower and spent time developing characters.

It doesn't really work, though it does give insight to government snafus and the waste of taxpayer dollars.

It's too bad Don Knotts didn't have a larger role.

I never heard of the movie until I saw it on TV about a year ago. I thought it was good, funny, and pretty much fit with the military style comedy genre of the late 50s, early 60s. Dick Shawn is good, but his supporting cast really makes the movie go.