Le bal des cinglés

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.

Operation Mad Ball is a peculiar combination of MASH and McHale's Navy, taking some of the best elements of both tried and true military service comedies. Jack Lemmon and Ernie Kovacs are a pair of beautifully matched antagonists.

It's France after VE Day and our army is just an army of occupation now and awaiting orders either for home or may be the Pacific Theater. Jack Lemmon would like to throw a big blowout for everyone before they all separate. But the killjoy of the proceedings is Ernie Kovacs who is a petty martinet and constantly getting in the way of all Lemmon's schemes the way Captain Binghamton used to do with Lieutenant Commander McHale. And sad to say he doesn't have an island at his disposal where he could ship McHale off to the way Joe Flynn exiled Ernie Borgnine and the rest of his PT Crew.

There's a little bit of Frank Burns on Kovacs's character as well as he tries to do things the military way while the commanding officer Arthur O'Connell is a doctor who just wants to run a hospital. See what happens at the beginning when Kovacs tries to court martial Lemmon and how O'Connell just gets out of it.

But the main problem is getting the party together without Kovacs finding out about it. Lemmon is nothing if not resourceful and his main problems is getting women for the party. What's a party without them, but the only women available are the nurses and the army's seen fit to commission them bringing in that pesky no fraternization rule. That in fact is what almost got Lemmon that court martial as Kovacs thought he was getting to familiar with Kathryn Grant. After all that was territory he had staked out and no enlisted man was going to move in on him.

Look for a nice performance by Mickey Rooney in the small role of a human encyclopedia running a port facility, a key guy in Lemmon's plans. And you haven't lived until you've heard an extremely bad version of In The Mood done on harmonica and ocarina. Good thing Glenn Miller had died before listening to this.

Operation Mad Ball sad to say is too little seen these days. It's a great introduction to those who want to study the comedic art of Jack Lemmon. Try not to miss it when broadcast.

"Operation Mad Ball" is a very funny movie, with a wonderful cast. One wonders if this film didn't inspire the 1972 hit TV series, "M.A.S.H.," more than the 1970 movie and book it was based on. Army surgeon H. Richard Hornberger wrote "MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors" in 1968, under the pen name, Richard Hooker. It was about his service in the Korean War. The 1970 movie, "M.A.S.H." was based on his book. While Hooker liked the movie, he didn't like the TV series, saying it wasn't his kind of medical humor. But the type of hijinks, fenagling and scheming plans in "Operation Mad Ball" are much like what the later TV series seemed to thrive on - in between its witty and funny dialog at times and its occasional serious notes.

And, this movie was made earlier than all those other sources. So, anything familiar in those and other films or shows like them ("McHale's Navy" TV series of 1962 and movie of 1964, "Operation Petticoat" movie of 1959, etc.) may have been borrowed from this movie.

The U.S. Army 1066th General Hospital is located somewhere in northern France. The war in Europe ended four months earlier. It's now September 1945, and the Army's presence is mostly helping the French rebuild, and the hospital is there to care for the last injured in recovery before everyone returns to the States.

Jack Lemmon's Pvt. Hogan is a genius of an idea man - in this case, a schemer for having fun and getting the most out of the remainder of his Army time, by having the least to do. The latter explains why after at least three years and a number of combat awards, Hogan is still a private. When his nemesis, Capt. Paul Lock, played superbly by Ernie Kovacs, tries to nail him on any infraction, he somehow slips by or gets out of it. In one scene, Lock is trying to get Col. Rousch, the unit's commander, to throw the book at Hogan. He points to the record he has handed Rousch, who then starts reading, "Silver Star, bronze star with cluster, purple heart...." When Rousch says it's quite a record, Hogan explains that it had just been luck - he had been in the wrong place at the time.

Having served with all of the NCOs in the unit the past three years, Hogan knows the ins and outs of the whole unit - and then some. And, they all know what he can do. With the unit soon to be shipped Stateside, he plans one last great fling for the enlisted men and nurses - a fantastic ball at Madame LaFour's inn and hotel. And, everyone has to pitch in to pull it off and not get discovered by Lock. .

The film has a whale of a cast, all of whom are very good. The comedy isn't from lots of witty or funny dialog. It's most situational, and much of it somewhat occupational - having to do with the Army. Veterans of all branches of service should enjoy this film, as well as family members and all who enjoy good comedies. The ending is a real hoot. This is a classic example of a very good comedy that would be much less without the straight man role. And Kovacs plays it perfectly.

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.