I don't know why, but I love movies from past decades and about wars. Ever since I took my awesome 20th Century World Topics history class my senior year in high school, I learned everything I could about all the major wars from the 20th Century: World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, the Cold War, the Persian Gulf War and so on.
I'm also passionate about the military. Though my family is small, I'm pretty sure all five branches of the military have been covered in some way. My dad is retired Coast Guard, and my grandfathers served in the Army and the Navy.
So when I picked up Neil Simon's "Biloxi Blues" from the library, seeing a young Matthew Broderick on the front cover wasn't the only thing that got me interested. The dog tags with pictures of Christopher Walken and Penelope Ann Miller plus the background of soldiers at what appears to be a training camp peaked my interest. It got me guessing what war this movie was set in, and well, by then, I knew I had to pick it up and watch it.
The opening scene shows Broderick's character staring out the window of an old train painted forest green with gold lettering, moving along a railroad trestle bridge over a huge body of water. Broderick is staring, while army recruits around him are talking and laughing. The music is the melodious yet sad "How High The Moon" by Pat Suzuki. The camera eventually pans out to give a stunning aerial view of the entire train and its locomotive puffing along toward its destination. You can watch the opening scenes to "Biloxi Blues" here on YouTube.
As the credits end and the music fades away, we see a close-up of Broderick's character's crestfallen face, as we learn it is 1945. He says, "I don't think much about the big war anymore, the one they call the second one, because the small wars that came after it, seem a lot bigger now than the big war was. Most people today look back at the big one with fond memories. It was, in a sense, an okay war. We knew why we were fighting it and we felt pretty proud of ourselves being in it. We liked the songs, we liked the uniforms. we liked the girls, we liked that everyone liked us. So looking back it really was one of the better wars. Except if you were just a kid, the year out of high school, heading south on a troop train, knowing that in two months, you'd be in some mud hole, fighting for your life."
As his voice-over continues, we see Broderick's character take up a fountain pen, open a school black-and-white speckled composition book, and begin to write. As the train continues on its journey, we hear the train whistle blow, and eventually fade out.
As the movie progresses and Broderick narrates, Broderick stars as 20-year-old Eugene Morris Jerome, a Jewish Brooklynite drafted into the U.S. Army during the last year of WWII. He is subsequently sent to Biloxi, Mississippi for basic training before being sent off to join the fight for the Allies. During training in Biloxi, Eugene has to deal with his fellow, often hostile recruits along with tough drill sergeant Merwin J. Toomey (Walken). Throughout training, Eugene, expecting the Army to be "dolls, doughnuts and USO dances," according to the movie cover, he learns about all walks of life and meets Daisy (Miller), along with a host of other characters.
Neil Simon is a master at making funny movies. The hilarious antics of Eugene's humor spices up the army and bootcamp life in Biloxi. Eugene's naivety is poignant early on, but he is transformed into the quintessential army man and the gentleman of the 1940s, who is captured by Miller and her heart. Walken, a brilliant actor, plays the role of Sgt. Toomey in hilarious fashion, eccentric but always annoyed by Eugene and the other recruits. Director Mike Nichols accomplished fantastic work with "Biloxi Blues," incorporating a great cast with Simon's semi-autobiographical play, the second of three parts.
I would highly recommend this film, especially if you are a Matthew Broderick or Christopher Walken fan. It is classic Simon comedy, set in the not-so-funny atmosphere of WWII bootcamp.
As always, I love any comments or suggestions for little-known movies to review!
Thanks for reading this week and stay tuned for a new review next week!
-Laura Beth :)
I have never heard of this movie and that's hard to do LB! I loved your description... I want to see this movie now!
ReplyDeleteI also come from a very heavy military family so I think that I would have had the same reaction as you if I saw this movie in passing.
And what a crazy combination of stars! I never knew that Matthew Broderick, Penelope Ann Miller and Christopher Walken where ever in a movie together, which only makes this 10 times more appealing!
I've heard of this movie I've never seen it. As I've said before great descriptors! I also have a family that is full of military people and I think it'd be cool to watch this movie as well. Have you ever seen operation petticoat? It has cary grant in it and he's the captain of a submarine, it takes place during a war but doesn't really show any fighting going on. It's just his character reminiscing on one trip he had out to sea where they ended up painting the sub pink. It was really good you might like it! Men in military uniforms haha. Just a suggestion but keep up the descriptors it really helps reel the readers in and keep them reading. If you're going to review movies that's the way to do it.
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