Hi there! Today is the birthday of the United States Coast Guard!
The Coast Guard's roots go back to when the United States Department of the Treasury set up a small fleet of ships to enforce tariffs, an important source of revenue for the new nation. Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton lobbied Congress to fund those ship which Congress did on August 4th, 1790.
Today's post is about a 1958 movie called Onionhead, a comedy drama film set on a U.S. Coast Guard ship during World War II starring Andy Griffith.
In the spring of 1941, Al Woods (Griiffith) quits an Oklahoma college to join the armed forces after a quarrel with his college girlfriend Jo.
He flips a coin and joins the Coast Guard.
Al is assigned to a buoy tender in Boston, the Periwinkle, as a ship's cook although he has no experience in actual cooking.
Al immediately gets on the bad side of galley chief Red Wildoe, crew mates Gutsell and Poznicki as well as his arrogant department head, Lieutenant Higgins.
Eventually Red actually tries to help Al become a better cook. And things smooth over with his crew mates.
Higgins is a total dick and Al eventually discovers Higgins is skimming the ship's food budget, leaving the crew with substandard chow while lining his own pockets. Al is determined the expose the corrupt officer.
At a Boston bar, Al tries to hook up with Stella but fails. They seem to have some kind of mutual attraction but Stella keeps Al at a distance. Al is frustrated as hell by this failure to get busy with this lady. She seems like a sure thing but she ain't putting out for Al.
She does agree to marry Red. Go figure!
Then suddenly World War II is declared.
Side note: there is no plot in a movie or a book that is not immediately bolstered by the sentence "Then suddenly World War II is declared."
From Here To Eternity was a sappy soap opera. Then the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor and suddenly World War II is declared.
Red gets shipped off to another ship. But Stella is not being faithful while her new husband is away. Stella tries to seduce Al (oh, NOW she's interested!) Al calls her a tramp. She replies: "I can't help what I am."
Al is made the new chief cook of the Periwinkle where he finds himself still on the outs with Higgins who reportedly finds one of Al's hairs in his food. Al shaves his scalp bald, earning the nickname "Onionhead."
Which is the name of the whole damn movie if Al is only bald for a few scenes before his hair starts to grow back.
Assuming all the officers are in on the scam, Al goes over the chain of command and files a complaint with the Coast Guard district office about Higgins skimming the food budget.
But isn't there a war on? Hell yeah!
The Periwinkle engages with a German submarine (Damn Nazis! I hates Nazis!) and downs that sucker thanks to some derring do from good ol' Al.
Al Woods is a bonafide war hero!
But...
That business with the food budget scam comes back to bite him in the ass. Too late he realizes the officers are not in on this scam and it's just Higgins. But Al has put the whole ship under a cloud of scandal. He denies he has evidence of his accusation against Higgins and takes a demotion and reassignment to Greenland.
Then Al gives his evidence to the Captain and now Higgins is going to get his ass handed to him hard.
Meanwhile, Al realizes he really does love Jo and asks her...
- Who's Jo?
- She was the college girlfriend he broke up with at the start of the film.
- Thanks! I forgot.
- That's all right.
Where were we?
Oh yeah!
Meanwhile, Al realizes he really does love Jo and asks her to marry him and she says yes and the Captain gives Al leave to get married and go engage in legally sanctioned heteronormative intercourse before he is shipped off to Greenland.
And happy damn birthday to the Coast Guard!
And what the hell was this movie?
Onionhead tries to thread the needle between the broad comedy of No Time For Sergeants and the dark despair of A Face In the Crowd.
And doesn't quite succeed. The pendulum swings of tone are off putting. One minute you have broad physical comedy (an inexperienced Al puts WAY too much yeast in the bread he's baking, resulting in a Blob monster) and the next, you've got a dark almost sinister drama (Al's attitudes towards women is more than just 1950's sexism but borders on the misogynistic.)
Al is not an easy character to tolerate, let alone like.
The upshot is Onionhead was both a commercial and critical failure at the time of it's release and drove Andy Griffith to focus his attention on television.
Anyway, thank you to Alexander Hamilton for creating the Coast Guard which keeps America's shorelines safe. (This does not let you off the hook for the Electoral College.)
No comments:
Post a Comment