Just Doing Your Hitch

I just watched You're In The Army Now, a forgettable Warner Bros. service comedy from 1941. It's a shameless collection of stolen gags that Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, The Marx Brothers and Charlie Chaplin had done better.

What fascinated me about the film is it teams up Jimmy Durante and Phil Silvers. Both funny men, but both specializing in very talky routines. The few laughs the film has to offer mostly come from senior partner Durante, who dominates. It'd be more than a decade before Silvers showed what he could do in uniform as Sergeant Bilko.

The film also features a young Jane Wyman, who'd married Ronald Reagan the year before. She'd be taken seriously by Hollywood in the post-war era, with four nominations for the Best Actress Oscar and one win, but in this film her main job is being good-looking, a talent she definitely possesses.