When newly assigned B17 belly gunner Bill Kluggs(Dan Dailey) belatedly bails out of the pilotless plane, over coastal France, after his crew buddies bailed out over the UK, he lands in an open field with 3 men not in uniform pointing a gun at him, regarding him with suspesion. They march him to a nearby building, where Bill meets the tough leader of this French resistance cell :Corinne Calvert, as Yvonne : provocatively dressed in peasant's garb. She too treats Bill with guarded suspesion. Despite his American soldier uniform. Strangely, she takes his dog tag and drops it down her open cleavage. In response, Bill remarks "That's quite a handy filing cabinet you have down there". After more questioning, she finally relents her suspesion and gives him back his dog tag. Soon, she lets him look through a telescope at a huge experimental German rocket(V2), which takes off(shown in archival film footage). A picture of the rocket is taken through a telephoto lens. Bill would like to go to sleep, but is plied with plenty of liquor, put in a small wagon and covered with straw. The wagon is pushed to the coast, where he is given the photo and told he must board an approaching British patrol boat and present the photo to British military high command. This he does. They are quite disturbed by what the see, and order a large air attack in the area where he landed. He wants to sleep so badly, but they ply him with liquor, and tell him he must immediately board a P-38 fighter and be flown to Washington. There, he is whisked to the Pentagon, and undergoes a grueling interrogation, repeated 5 times for various brass. Finally, he collapses from exhaustion, and is ordered taken to a hospital for recuperation, followed by a 30 day furlough. When he gets to the hospital, he's pretty incoherent, desperately needing sleep, and having again been plied with alcohol. So, it's decided he should be checked into the psychopathology department. The next scene has him running down the hall, with a doctor after him. Strangely, the next scene is of a moving train, and then of it stopping at his hometown : Punxsutawney, WV.(There is no such actual town in WV, but there is one in western PA!). We must surmise that he somehow escaped from the hospital and made it to the train station, and boarded the train, probably, with no money. Quite a miraculous accomplishment!! He then sneaks to his family house, and climbs through the open kitchen window, only to be clubbed on the head by his father, who thought he was a burglar. His family, and Margie, who arrives, as well as I, could not believe he had been all these places in just the 4 days since he had departed his home!! Hope he slept on the train, because he won't get any more sleep for quite a while, as some MPs knock the front door down, not to take him back to the hospital, but to take him to meet the president, who wants to personally congratulate him. End of story. Incidentally, Willie clearly didn't come marching home!
Turning to the first part of the film, Bill is enjoying an easy day, going to church, playing with his band, then seeing his girlfriend : Margie((Collen Townsend), when news of Pearl Harbor arrives. He's the first in his town to volunteer for the army : specifically, the army aircorp. At basic training, he doesn't do well in his flight training, wrecking a plane. However, he's tops in aerial artillery gunnery. So when basic training is finished, he's flabbergasted to discover that he has been assigned to a new pilot-training facility just outside his hometown. The town people give him a big welcoming party. Turns out, the army plans to keep him there as the gunnery instructor. Thus, he remains there for about 2 years, during which time, the town's people don't understand why he isn't sent overseas, concluding that he must be a coward. Many times, he requests transfer overseas, but always turned down, until one day, a local B17 bomber crew needs a belly gunner, so he's hustled onto the plane, which takes off for the UK. Unfortunately, as they approach the UK, there is a heavy fog, and their instrumentation that might help them land safely is not working. So, the pilot is ordered to ditch the plane. Unfortunately, Bill fell asleep in his position and didn't hear the command to prepare for evacuation. Later, he wakes up and can't find anyone else on board, so parachutes out while the plane is still high enough for a safe landing. Turns out, he lands in a coastal region of France, as I previously described.
I would say this John Ford-directed film is just a so-so unbelievable farce.......... Dan did get to sing one song, as he did in most of his films. Collen gets to sing a bit with him, revealing a good singing voice. She also sang a back and forth in him "Crazy for You" in a deleted scene shown on the DVD. Again, her singing was excellent. Unfortunately, after completing this film, she 'got religion', and ended her brief Hollywood career, marrying a future pastor. She made a good -looking wholesome girl-next-door in her two films starring Dan, playing his girlfriend in one, and his daughter in the other.......... You can see this, free, on YouTube, or get it as part of the John Ford comedies collection.
Turning to the first part of the film, Bill is enjoying an easy day, going to church, playing with his band, then seeing his girlfriend : Margie((Collen Townsend), when news of Pearl Harbor arrives. He's the first in his town to volunteer for the army : specifically, the army aircorp. At basic training, he doesn't do well in his flight training, wrecking a plane. However, he's tops in aerial artillery gunnery. So when basic training is finished, he's flabbergasted to discover that he has been assigned to a new pilot-training facility just outside his hometown. The town people give him a big welcoming party. Turns out, the army plans to keep him there as the gunnery instructor. Thus, he remains there for about 2 years, during which time, the town's people don't understand why he isn't sent overseas, concluding that he must be a coward. Many times, he requests transfer overseas, but always turned down, until one day, a local B17 bomber crew needs a belly gunner, so he's hustled onto the plane, which takes off for the UK. Unfortunately, as they approach the UK, there is a heavy fog, and their instrumentation that might help them land safely is not working. So, the pilot is ordered to ditch the plane. Unfortunately, Bill fell asleep in his position and didn't hear the command to prepare for evacuation. Later, he wakes up and can't find anyone else on board, so parachutes out while the plane is still high enough for a safe landing. Turns out, he lands in a coastal region of France, as I previously described.
I would say this John Ford-directed film is just a so-so unbelievable farce.......... Dan did get to sing one song, as he did in most of his films. Collen gets to sing a bit with him, revealing a good singing voice. She also sang a back and forth in him "Crazy for You" in a deleted scene shown on the DVD. Again, her singing was excellent. Unfortunately, after completing this film, she 'got religion', and ended her brief Hollywood career, marrying a future pastor. She made a good -looking wholesome girl-next-door in her two films starring Dan, playing his girlfriend in one, and his daughter in the other.......... You can see this, free, on YouTube, or get it as part of the John Ford comedies collection.