The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell

"The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell" is a solid 1960's comedy. This may be my favorite Bob Hope movie. It's a very funny movie. The jokes are great. The story is a great comedy plot. The supporting cast is very strong. All around "The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell" is a great way to spend 90 minutes. It's a lot of fun. Honorable Mention: a very dreamy Gina Lollobrigida.

I own this movie and I really did not think that it would be all that great. But I was pleasantly surprised. It's GREAT and Bob Hope and Phyllis Diller work great together. I highly recommend it. I love the two of them together. I have to say that I consider Bob Hope to be in the top 10 of funniest comedians.

Really funny plot drives this silly film regarding the boredom faced by soldiers in the Pacific during WWII. After the Japanese torpedo Hope's beer supply, he takes matters into his own hands to improve morale.

His effort to bring women on the island, only gets him male nurses and Phylis Diller. Although the plot drags a bit, and Hope's pranks seem dated, this is still a good flick with lots of harmless laughs. However, if you are politically correct, you will probably be offended.

I'm a big fan of Bob Hope's movies. Some of his earliest works are superior to even his Road films with old what's his name. By the time this movie came around, you could tell he was running out of material. With a nod from the series, McHale's Navy, he plays a sergeant who just about runs his own military base, but when a state of prohibition hits the island, he takes it upon himself to get beer to his buddies with the help of a Japanese deserter hiding out on the island. Now that the men have beer, they start looking for another male vice: women. With another nod to Paint Your Wagon, they lure several female nurses to an island along with Phyllis Diller who pursues Hope like a love-sick school girl. It's an underestimated comedy as he tries to stay ahead of his superior and love-starved Diller. The movie drags a bit in some places, but I'm sure only die-hard fans of Bob Hope will enjoy it.

By the time Bob Hope got to making The Private Navy of Sgt O'Farrell the comedy well was running a bit dry. Thiw was material that he could have done 20 years before, during the post World War II period.

Somebody must have gotten an idea for this film noticing that in McHale's Navy, Ernest Borgnine, Tim Conway and the gang had their own personal Japanese prisoner. So a whole film was built around a leftover Japanese soldier on the backwater island that Hope is stationed on. Hope has his own Ensign Parker in Jeffrey Hunter and his own Captain Binghamton in John Myhers.

We've got both Army and Navy personnel here though the Navy seems to be in charge. John Myhers is no Joe Flynn with that officious monotone as Captain Binghamton. And no one would ever say that Jeffrey Hunter had Tim Conway's gift for comedy.

And Hope looks every bit of the 65 years he had under his belt when this film was made. He ought to have been stateside collecting those first Social Security checks issued.

Mako does well as Calvin Coolidge Ishimura an American Japanese who had the misfortune to be visiting relatives in the old country at the time of Pearl Harbor. And Phyllis Diller as the man starved nurse Krauss earns a few laughs.

The film is about Hope's pursuit of a sunken supply ship that was loaded with beer. From what I remember of the army it probably would have been near beer which was all an enlisted man could get on Fort Polk, so I didn't see what the fuss was about. Frank Tashlin the director clearly ripped this one off from the classic British comedy Whiskey Galore.

Joke kind of fell flat as the beer probably was.