Onionhead

Apparently a lot of people who are used to Andy Griffith from No Time For Sergeants or from the Andy Griffith Show were expecting something quite different from Onionhead. This is an armed service film set in the Coast Guard during World War II. It's got it's funny moments, but if you're expecting No Time For Sergeants at sea you won't get it. At least Griffith isn't redoing Lonesome Rhodes here.

Andy leaves the plains of Oklahoma behind and becomes a cook after a fashion on a Coast Guard vessel, earning the enmity which gradually warms to respect from chief cook Walter Matthau. He's got less success with Ray Danton the Executive Officer on his ship who is an American version of Captain Bligh in more ways than one. Fans of Mutiny On The Bounty will remember Clark Gable's lecture to Charles Laughton on all the ways that captains make extra money before and during their voyages. Danton has something of that racket going here.

But being headstrong and obstreperous Griffith does not observe the chain of command and causes more problems than what he's trying to solve. He's also got some romantic issues as well with girl he left behind Erin O'Brien-Moore and Felicia Farr the nymphomaniac wife of Walter Matthau.

Best scenes are in the galley with Matthau, Griffith separately and apart. Now their bits are standard for every Hollywood service comedy.

Such colorful cast members as James Gregory, Joey Bishop, Joe Mantell, Tige Andrews, and Claude Akins round out the cast. Many of them clean some Navy clocks when at a bar they're referred to as shallow water sailors. Onionhead is definitely a classic films though it's not quite a comedy.

Unfortunately for the movie, I read the book first and so was vastly disappointed as so often happens when producers, directors and big time actors get involved. . The book had an influence on me joining in the USCG in 1959 on that exact type of 180' bouy tenders mostly, one home-ported in Charleston SC and another based in Honolulu, Hawaii, that spent most of its time cruising the Western and Southern Pacific. The movie hams up the story and must have had a committee of screen writers trying to put in slapstick humor. Years later I reread the book at least twice and it never failed to entertain. By then I could really appreciate the authenticity of the book's details that coincided with my personal adventures and were lost in the movie. I rented the 1958 movie once to see if my opinion had changed but it is no wonder it was a box office bomb.

This was one of the main reasons I joined the United States Coast Guard in 1976 and retired in 2006. I was 10 years old when I saw the movie and have been remembering it every day since. I would like to find out how to purchase this for my home collection. As I remember the story, it is close to Mister Rogers plot, except a Coast Guard version instead. Granted, there are a lot of flaws one could develop of the view of the Coast Guard, it is the unsung hero of the United States Armed Forces. Very few people realize the how small the Coast Guard is, when I retired, there were only 35,000. This does not come out in this movie, which I wished it would have. Nor does the movie depict the dangerous jobs the men and women of the Coast Guard do on a daily basis.

I have seen the movie a few times over the years, and usually enjoy it for what it is. Its not a comedy, though it has funny moments, and the characters are interesting even though none of them is really appealing. I suppose it would have to be classified as a drama, though it isn't really dramatic in theme or treatment, and it isn't exactly slice of life, its too scatter-shot to be that. A series of incidents that define the character and development of a man from callow youth through cynical adult to something a bit more compassionate and understanding by the end of the movie. This movie was apparently something of a departure for Andy Griffith, as he rarely returned to this sort of material in his career, seeming to prefer a more slapstick, comedic role, but it does indeed demonstrate his capability of handling material outside that venue.

In this 1958 Warner Brothers production, Andy Griffith is both nutty and yet very dramatic; this movie indicates that fact very well. While I was watching this as a boy in 1958, I was expecting a comedy, but, unlike the side-splitting comedy "No Time for Sergeants" it was only humorous occasionally. I learned empirically that if anyone was looking for a comedy in this, don't get your hopes up along that line. But again, it was a well-done production of its kind. Tersely, the story is about a 1941 Oklahoma boy named Alvin "Al" Woods in maybe his twenties who becomes upset one night with his girlfriend because of a lack of commitment on her part, which spurns him to go join the Coast Guard where he is assigned to a ship in Boston and ends up being a cook. Because of his naivete he is sometimes taken advantage of by others on the ship, though many of them do end up respecting him. He becomes very serious and firm when, because of a conflict in the kitchen, he takes a very serious stand. Again, his dramatic powers come through when he not only takes his stand, but when he becomes frustrated as well. The 12/07/1941 attack on Pearl Harbor was well-dramatized. The acting was well-done. The very lovely Felicia Farr lends support as Stella Papparonis, a not-so-nice girl who likes to throw herself at men. Walter Matthau is comical as 'Red' Wildoe, the chief cook. Ray Danton must have wanted people to hate him, for here he plays a cold and very dishonest Ensign Dennis Higgins. Erin O'Brien is a sweet and pretty lady as Josephine "Jo" Hill, Woods' first love interest. James Gregory, though smile-less and a bit on the rough side, portrays well Lt. Cmdr. Fox, a man who becomes a very good-hearted and supportive friend of Woods. Claude Akins is nutty as a buddy of Woods. Everything taken into consideration, it is a well-done dramatic feat.