david-hinman-1 Review of Men of the Fighting Lady

Men of the Fighting Lady (1954)

Overall, good movie....except the Beav will always be the Beav

[24 March 2009]

Good flick. I DVR'd it the other week, watched it last night, and when the cast names appeared at the beginning, I was like, well now, all right! And not at all disappointed by the acting. With Van Johnson, acting was like falling off a log, always great. Dewey Martin was VERY convincing as a wounded pilot, just on the brink of passing out each minute during the return flight. This was the high point of the movie. I have never seen Keenan Wynn more appealing, as he usually plays over the top characters. This time he was very likable, and more importantly, he got across his message, which was very candid for its time. The message being that this was not a popular war, or even necessary, therefore heroics were not necessary. Motivation is very important when fighting a battle. Walter Pidgeon is always just pleasure to watch. Only thing I didn't like, was when watching the 'Christmas film', on comes the family of the just killed pilot, Wynn. This was a little over the edge, with all the cute little kids singing silent night, and clearly designed for some contrived tear coaxing. Plus, you knew it was coming. And, although back then it wouldn't have mattered, seeing Beaver Cleaver hamming it up on the clip was very distracting, actually funny. I kept waiting for Eddie Haskell to amble on in. Something about the ending was missing, but can't say what. Just found it empty. Great fun to watch though for a first time.