BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Bereamic Awesome Movie

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

gerdeen-1 Funny stories about con men in the military are nothing new, and this one seems especially implausible (even though it allegedly has some basis in truth). But that doesn't matter. Archie Hall is an unforgettable character, and the great Robert Mitchum brings him splendidly to life. For all the pros in the supporting cast, I'm not sure this quirky tale would even have worked without Mitchum.Archie is a lowly GI serving on an obscure Stateside post during World War II. He and his pals feel the Army cheated them out of the plum assignments they deserved, but Archie doesn't waste his time complaining. Instead, with a mix of genius and audacity, he creates a splendid life for himself right where he is. Soon he's virtually running the camp.The fast-talking Archie charms every beautiful woman in sight, including an enigmatic Japanese-American (played by France Nuyen) who may be involved in an espionage plot. His superiors are in awe of him and fall all over themselves to give him special privileges. And though his comrades in arms see through his games, and sometimes gripe about him, he's so successful that they can't resist jumping on his gravy train.Jack Webb, who also produced and directed this film, plays the most strait-laced character in it, though not the self-righteous, uptight Webb usually seen on the screen. He plays Archie's buddy, Bill Bowers, who genuinely likes the con man but fears he's getting into something he can't talk his way out of. Thanks to Archie, Bowers finds his own love interest (played by Martha Hyer).This movie has some laugh-out-loud moments but occasionally hits a serious note. It's neither as flag-waving as the military comedies of the 1940s nor as dark and anti-war as those of the '70s. It manages to be entertaining, moving and believable at the same time. For the believability, I give Mitchum the credit. As many movie fans are aware, Bill Bowers and Arch Hall Sr. were real-life Army buddies who also happened to be in the film industry. When the movie came out, Hall disputed Bowers' recollections of their life in uniform. So how accurate this story is may never be known. And it's possible the main character was embellished, too. But even if the "Archie" we see here is mostly fictional, he's a great guy to spend a little time with.

bkoganbing No one will ever rate The Last Time I Saw Archie as one of Robert Mitchum's greatest films. But it does and Mitchum does have a certain droll quality that makes it passably amusing, at least to me.This is believe it or not a true story based on the memoir of screenwriter William Bowers played here by Jack Webb who produced and directed the film, on another film person, one Arch Hall, Sr. In real life Hall spent several years trying to make his son Arch Hall, Jr. a film star. He in my opinion topped Ed Wood in the making of bad films that starred his son. If what I saw in the film was any indication of what he was in real life, the senior Hall had to be one of the greatest conmen that ever lived to have wheedled out money from people to produce what he did. Such classics as Eegah and The Choppers are on his list of film credits.Mitchum plays Hall and from the day he and Webb join the Army Air Corps, Mitchum displays a genius for conning everybody around. People do need at least one confidante in life and Webb kind of falls into the role. Around the same time there was a British film called On The Fiddle which starred a pre-James Bond Sean Connery and there is a lot of similarity.Any film that has such funny people as Don Knotts, Joe Flynn, Harvey Lembeck,Robert Strauss and Louis Nye is definitely worth a look. None of these guys do their best work in The Last Time I Saw Archie, but still they help moves this film along, especially Lembeck and Strauss as a couple of dimwitted sergeants who are the chief victims of Mitchum's roguish ways. France Nuyen and Martha Hyer nicely decorate the film in the two female roles of size. Production values were lacking, according to Lee Server's definitive book on Robert Mitchum it only had a four week shooting schedule and it looked like it was mostly shot on a television sound stage. Still it does give us a few chuckles.But now after seeing this again for the first time in about 35 years and after seeing some of Arch Hall's work on screen I think there definitely is an Oscar winning film here. Johnny Depp, I hope you read this review.

smokehill retrievers Light, entertaining piece that oddly seems to fit both Webb and Mitchum. The scriptwriter had an excellent feel for how things worked (and still work, probably) in the Army if you know how to play the angles. Most of us who spent a few years on active duty (I spent 21 yrs) pulled a lot of these stunts, and we all knew people like Archie Hall -- and most of the other denizens of Camp Buckley.This ain't CITIZEN KANE, but it's a lot of fun, probably a lot more so if you spent time in uniform.

eastwindrain This movie combines features of the WWII Aviation Cadet program (Preflight), Civilian Pilot Training Program, and O.C.S. It is not like any of them as An Officer and a Gentleman is not like any USN program. However, I would think that the writer had been in one of the programs to get it so right as to how the guys interact with each other and with the military. I am the product of such a program (Aviation Cadets) and saw much to identify with. From the writer's list of credits, covering ever year of WWII it doesn't seen that he could have been in the military. Still, he got it right. The first time I saw the movie I thought the spy subplot was a stupid filler but I enjoyed it much more in later viewings.