In 1941, after Bud Abbott and Lou Costello made a smash in Buck Privates, every movie studio had to try and copy the formula, which was a team of wacky new servicemen in the Army, a romantic subplot and maybe some flashy musical numbers. Buck Privates was made for Universal. Over at Twentieth-Century Fox, they signed up Laurel and Hardy and filmed Great Guns. Warner Brothers, meanwhile, tried to create their own comedy team. They took Jimmy Durante, who hadn't clicked as Buster Keaton's partner years before, and paired him with newcomer Phil Silvers for You're in the Army Now. You can see the results on Turner Classic Movies on January 4 at, in most time zones, 12:30 PM.
How good is it? Not very, I'm afraid. It's always fun to watch Durante and Silvers but they have no particular chemistry and the jokes feel like the kind of stuff Bud and Lou threw away. Still, it may well be where Nat Hiken got the idea to cast Mr. Silvers in an army comedy…and it may be the reason Mr. Silvers resisted the whole idea.
In his autobiography, Silvers told how he made a deal with CBS to do a situation comedy and Hiken was signed to create it. Hiken's first idea was to make him a sergeant and Silvers rejected it, thinking it would all be "Abbott and Costello nonsense," with soldiers bumping into each other and losing their pants. Obviously, he had at least in the back of his mind that it would turn out like You're in the Army Now. Anyway, Hiken then spent the next few months suggesting other ideas for a series and neither he nor Phil liked any of them. Finally one day, Silvers said, approximately, "Hey, let's go back to that army idea." And that's how M/Sgt. Ernie T. Bilko was born.
Below is the trailer for You're in the Army Now and it's obviously from a reissue. How do we know this? Well, it says so on the trailer but even if it didn't, they mention Mr. Silvers being in Top Banana, which didn't even come along until 1951, ten years after this movie was made. On the other hand, they don't mention Sgt. Bilko, which went on in 1955 so that helps us narrow down the dates of the re-release.
And speaking of Top Banana, which we've done a lot of here in previous posts, the movie version of it follows You're in the Army Now on TCM that morning. It's a sloppily-produced version of the Broadway hit but Phil Silvers gives an irresistible performance. You might want to set your VCR or TiVo. As flawed as it is, it's still better than this movie…
