MartinHafer You've gotta feel sorry for Harry (Paul Newman) in "Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys!". His wife (Joanne Woodward) is ALWAYS busy with committees and projects and never has time for him. No sooner does he convince her to take out some time so they can go off to a romantic hotel than she agrees to head up yet another committee--one to fight a new army base coming to town! This time, she not only agrees to be the head but volunteers Harry for it as well! All Harry wants is to be with his wife....alone! At the same time, a VERY sexy neighbor (Joan Collins) is suffering from the same problem with her husband--a man who is practically never home. However, she deals with it very differently--she decides she wants Harry! And, she'll do ANYTHING to get him--even ruin his marriage. For a 1950s film, "Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys!" is an amazingly sexual film. Think about it--the premise is that Harry is very sexually frustrated through no fault of his own! And, again and again, his libido is unfulfilled.So is this little comedy worth seeing? Yes. However, just because it has Newman and Woodward does NOT mean it's a great film--which it isn't. The film suffers from two main problems--the unfulfilled libido and the marital problems in Harry's marriage do seem to go on a bit too long. Additionally, I found it difficult to enjoy at times because Woodward's character is really difficult to like. Plus, towards the end it all just degenerates into a bit of a mess. Still, it's a cute film and a decent way to spend 106 minutes of your life provided your expectations are not especially high.By the way, the pageant about Pocahontas was perhaps even more insanely inaccurate than the Disney film. Imagine--Pocahontas greeting the Pilgrims lead by John Smith at Plymouth!! Firecrackers! Crazy.

mark.waltz If you are unaware of what "Sgt. Deadhead" is, it is a 1965 American International Frankie/Annette movie w/out Annette, sending an idiotic pilot into space with a monkey. Other than Eve Arden and a cast full of famous comic faces from TV (including Gale Gordon, who happens to appear in "Rally 'Round the Flag"), it is mostly forgettable. But, with the way "Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys" starts, it seems like this Cinemascope sophisticated comedy about the lives of a classy Long Island couple is going to actually be really good. That it is for 3/4 of the movie, and features a really sexy Paul Newman and a genuinely funny Joan Collins. In the film, Newman is a seemingly happily married man, with a wife (Joanne Woodward) and two children, but his wife is so involved in the community's do-gooder activities, they can't make time to go off on a much needed second honeymoon together. That's where Ms. Collins comes in, as the very glamorous next door neighbor, neglected by her own husband. She sets her sights on Newman, and in a very hysterical sequence, the two of them get rip-roaringly drunk and spend an evening together. Whether or not they get down is never revealed, and can only be assumed. But Newman and Collins seem to be having so much fun in this sequence, and he gets to lighten up a bit after dealing with Elizabeth Taylor's Maggie the Cat in the same year's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof".Acting wise, Collins easily steals the film. If Alexis Morrell Carrington Colby Dexter acted this way in 1958, she never got to show it when she came back to Denver on TV's "Dynasty" 23 years later. Collins proves herself to be an outstanding comedian, something most glamour queens of her stature never had the chance to do. Newman and Woodward never had the chance on screen to be a Burton and Taylor, as Woodward, obviously trained for the stage, wasn't as magnetic on screen in romantic parts as she was in sheer drama such as "Three Faces of Eve", "Rachel, Rachel", and "Summer Wishes, Summer Dreams". Newman, one of the most handsome men in films of the 50's and 60's, sometimes seems embarrassed by the comedy he has to do here, but Collins' light-hearted manner in their scenes together helps lighten him up.There are tons of things to recommend about this film, but the last quarter is not one of them. Its like a delicious cake frosted with a sugarless topping that disappoints overall. Some fun character players have nice bits, but Jack Carson's obnoxious army officer is not one of his better roles. However, as a good-looking film in delicious technicolor, it still is a lot of fun. This would have ranked a lot higher in my book had the ending been less sitcomish and more glamorous.

Greg Couture Leo McCarey, whose credits were certainly nothing to be ashamed of, was a bit past his prime when he directed this minor misfire. 20th Century Fox gave it first-class production values and a cast that could have had a lot more fun had a less cautious approach to the material been allowed to prevail. Leon Shamroy's CinemaScope/DeLuxe Color lensing was, not unexpectedly, a treat for the eyes and a few minor bits (Tuesday Weld squealing with delight as a swain sings "You're My Boojum!" to her; Joan Collins and Paul Newman engaging in an inebriated slapstick sequence that involved swinging from a chandelier, no less) hit the mark. I remember being disappointed that things didn't take off, like the accidentally fired missile in a scene with Woodward and Newman. But anyone who thinks that Joan Collins' only forte is playing a ruthless bitch, as she did on the long-running TV series, "Dynasty," would probably be delighted with her witty romp as Angela Hoffa, for me this film's memorable highpoint.

Fred Sliman (fs3) In other of Paul Newman's movie years, this one might have fared better, but alongside the Southern masterpieces Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Long Hot Summer, and the flawed but interesting Billy The Kid take The Left-Handed Gun, this sometimes amusing fluff just can't hold up. Good to see him paired with Woodward and taking a stab at screen comedy for the first time, but he never truly excelled at it until later in his career. Still, some nice bits and decent work survive. It's just impossible to see and compare these days, rarely if ever broadcast and unreleased to video to this day.