The Rookie

My mother and I went to see "The Rookies" in 1960 because the Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis comedy team had split and Peter Marshall and Tommy Noonan were being hailed as "The New Martin & Lewis". Although they never actually made it to that status, we sat there and laughed until our sides hurt. Even now, sixty six years later, I can still recall some of the hilarious dialog, "The flour's a little lumpy, John." and "Why you break my saxophone?" "Why you break my submarine?" We just loved it, and I wish it were available on either DVD or Video, I'd buy it in a minute. I thought that Peter Marshall and Tommy Noonan made the perfect team. I also believed them to be much better than Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Tommy was funny, especially when he had to go on for the TV chef and he got drunk on the wine, but he never acted stupid.

It's hard to tell if Noonan and Marshall are trying to ape Abbott & Costello, Martin & Lewis, Curley & Larry, or some other comedy team, but whoever it was they were trying to imitate, they failed miserably. There's barely one weak laugh in this whole incredibly stupid picture. Noonan (who helped write the alleged "script", which is full of tired vaudeville-era jokes, lame puns and plot holes you could drive a Peterbilt through) and Marshall have no chemistry whatsoever; Marshall seems to be trying for a Dean Martin type of devil-may-care coolness, but he doesn't come even remotely close. God knows what Noonan thought he was doing, but being funny sure wasn't it. He seems to think that flapping his arms and legs like a marionette and and staring stupidly at everyone and everything is the height of screen comedy; maybe for him it is, but not for the audience.

I remember seeing this in the theaters when it came out. It was on the bottom of a double bill with a three-year-old Jeff Chandler western ("Pillars of the Sky," which was pretty good) and a Three Stooges short ("Sappy Bullfighters", which wasn't), and about 20 minutes into this thing all the kids in the audience were throwing stuff at the screen; it was so staggeringly unfunny that it didn't even measure up to the worst of the Three Stooges shorts. I stayed around for the end of it (not that I wanted to, but my folks weren't due to pick me up until after the movie ended), and by the time this mess was over, I was the only one in the theater. I saw it again about 15 or so years ago on cable one night, and stuck around to watch it to see if it was as inept, unfunny and brainless as I remembered. Well, I had a surprise coming to me--it was worse.

The only thing--and I emphasize the ONLY thing--this dog has going for it was Julie Newmar, who was as smokingly hot as ever; other than her, this schnauzer has absolutely NOTHING to recommend it. The two of them also play Japanese soldiers, and the way they do it makes Jerry Lewis' infamous playing of Japanese characters as thick-lensed, buck-toothed, gibbering mental defectives look benign by comparison. Marshall went on to host "Hollywood Squares," and Noonan kept trying his hand at making movies, but most of them were almost as bad as this. Not quite, though, as I don't think ANYTHING could be quite as bad as this. A truly pathetic waste of film. Don't waste your time on it.

This superb,little known WW2 comedy starring Peter Marshall(Hollywood Squares)as a MasterSargeant and Tommy Noonan as himself who plays a recruit as they both get stranded on a deserted island with a strikingly beautiful model and are comparatively safe until they discover that 2 stranded Japanese soldiers(Also played by Marshall and Noonan)are also on the same island.This fine comedy is unfortunately not on vhs/dvd yet,unless lucky enough to catch it on television.

This service comedy, for which Peter Marshall (Joanne Dru's brother and later perennial host of The Hollywood Squares) and Tommy Noonan were hyped as 'the new Lewis and Martin' is just shy of dreadful: a few random sight gags are inserted, everyone talks fast and nothing works quite right -- there's one scene in which Noonan is throwing grenades at officers and politicians in anger; they're about five feet apart, Noonan is throwing them in between, and the total reaction is that everyone flinches.

In the midst of an awfulness relieved only by the fetching Julie Newmar, there are a few moments of brightness: Marshall and Noonan engage in occasional bouts of double talk and argufying, and their timing is nigh unto perfect -- clearly they were a well honed comedy pair.

It isn't enough to save this turkey, alas.

The Rookie suffers from so much. There are the random musical songs interspersed through the movie, the long pointless script and enough grating slapstick to make Jerry Lewis blush. Noonan and Leavitt just don't know when to quit. It takes a full hour before the story finally gets to the main plot and the characters are shipwrecked. Then the guys start playing Japanese sailors with the standard racist caricature of the day. It is a shame the funniest parts of the movie are when Noonan and Leavitt are playing the stupid, stereotyped Japanese guys. But, it gets pretty tiring after switching back and forth between two sets of characters. Then it just abruptly ends. Even a naked Julie Newmar in a towel can't save this one.

There is really little charm in the movie and it is over a half hour too long. The story just flounders along trying to set up funny situations and failing. Stick to Martin & Lewis. At least Deano had charm and Jerry had that animated face.