This unheralded opus from one of our greatest directors seems both oddly timed, (5 years after the end of combat in WWII), and unfortunately truncated. The thankfully preserved out-takes presented as deleted scenes on the DVD reveal that this may have been intended as Ford's only full fledged musical....which would have stood in strong contrast to his magnum opuses of this period (the beloved cavalry trilogy)...
As it stands the finished edit is shockingly good on all accounts...full of the director's astonishing eye for human detail and subtle performance. It plays like a slightly warmer hearted Preston Sturges wartime wacky fest (with William Demarest cementing the connection by almost reprising his great role in "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek".
The few numbers that remain are a tantalizing glimpse of how delightful a longer cut would have been...and the (incomplete) outtakes are both delicious and heartbreaking...
One has to wonder who decided to edit the film down...and how much more successful (and remembered) it might have been as Ford's big wartime set musical...
As it stands the finished edit is shockingly good on all accounts...full of the director's astonishing eye for human detail and subtle performance. It plays like a slightly warmer hearted Preston Sturges wartime wacky fest (with William Demarest cementing the connection by almost reprising his great role in "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek".
The few numbers that remain are a tantalizing glimpse of how delightful a longer cut would have been...and the (incomplete) outtakes are both delicious and heartbreaking...
One has to wonder who decided to edit the film down...and how much more successful (and remembered) it might have been as Ford's big wartime set musical...