RALLY ROUND THE FLAG, BOYS
US, 1958, 106 minutes, Colour.
Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Joan Collins, Jack Carson, Dwayne Hickman, Tuesday Weld.
Directed by Leo Mc Carey.
Rally Round the Flag, Boys is the first film collaboration between Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. They were to go on to quite a number of films together including Paris Blues, A New Kind of Love, Winning. Newman also directed his wife in such films as Rachel, Rachel and The Shadow Box.
The film is a light comedy – with some satiric touches and topical reference to building of missile bases. In Connecticut, a husband and wife, especially the wife, lead protests against the building of the site. In the background is a femme fatale – played by Joan Collins who had begun her career in England and had made a move to the United States with such films as The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing and Land of the Pharaohs. She was to play a femme fatale for, at least, the next fifty years. Tuesday Weld has a role early in her career – with the unlikely name of Comfort Goodpasture.
The film was directed by Leo Mc Carey who had his heyday in the 1930s and 1940s with such films as Duck Soup, The Awful Truth, Love Affair, winning an Oscar for Love Affair as well as for Going My Way in 1944. He made only one more film after this, Satan Never Sleeps.
1. Was this a successful comedy? What were its main features of comedy: laughs, general good humour, farce, material situations, parody? How typically an American comedy? Why? It was made in the late fifties, does it seem dated now?
2. How successful a satire was the film, on Americanism, on patriotism, the overtones of the title? What aspects of American patriotism and way of life were the film's targets? Which sequences were the most telling in satire?
3. How important for popular audience response was the style of the film: wide screen, colour, stars, the glamour and gloss, yet the folksy atmosphere of the film, the narrator, the town itself, the town meetings and people, the almost cliche situations in character, yet treated humorously
4. The importance of the suburban and commuter atmosphere of the film: the town itself and its heritage, the irony of this, the commuter jobs, the selfishness of the people, yet the civic action, the numerous committees and meetings, the quality of life, the critique that the film made of this, how telling and which sequences were the most prominent
here?
5. The importance of the army atmosphere, the atmosphere of American defence, loyalty to Washington, patriotic space exploration?
6. What comments did the film have to make about family life in America? relationships between husbands and wives, meetings and their impact on marriages, children brought up in this atmosphere? Patriotism as ruining the family?
7. How humorous were the aspects of the film which made it like a sex-farce? Mistaken identities, rooms, people arriving suddenly, the resolution of this? How likely and successfully handled were these aspects of the film? Could audiences enjoy it? Did it fit in well with the rest of the film?
8. The success of the farcical material: the committee meetings, the army personnel, the pageant etc., the finale?
What were the main targets of satire in the pageant sequence?
10. Should the film have had a happy ending? Is this necessary and convention in films of this kind?
11. How important for the success of the film was the fact that Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward starred? What did they contribute to the film?
12, What values in audiences do farcical and folksy comedies like this presuppose? Do they reinforce values? Is this a good thing?
