Director: Stuart Gillard
Cast: Gary Kroeger, Gretchen German, Marc Singer, Jennifer Runyon

It's interesting that for a number of movie studios, various members of the public will associate them for certain kinds of movies, and forget or not even know about the other kinds of movies they put out. For example, when the subject of studio Republic Pictures comes up, what do you immediately think of? You probably think of their serials and their low budget westerns that were aimed at a kiddie audience. What you might not know is that on several occasions they made "A" movies, movies, some of which attracted big stars like John Wayne (Sands Of Iwo Jima), and some that attracted big directors like Orson Welles (Macbeth) and John Ford (The Quiet Man). When you think about New World Pictures, founded by the legendary Roger Corman, you probably instantly think of various exploitation movies from that studio. But Corman did take care on a number of occasions to get the American rights to foreign art movies like The Tin Drum and Derzu Uzala. Then there was the case of the studio RKO. Probably most people today upon hearing of that studio regard them just as a scrappy major Hollywood studio wannabe, albeit with a few exceptions like King Kong. But they deserve a lot more prestigue that you might think. For example, for many years they were the distributor of all productions coming from the Disney company, from their animated short subjects to their feature length animated movies like Snow White And The Seven Dwarves and Pinocchio. Also, they had more big box office hits than you might think, such as a string of musicals with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. In fact, they were going along pretty well until 1948, when Howard Hughes bought the studio, and with his mismanagement eventually ground the studio to a halt less than ten years later.

Then there is the case of Cannon Films. Whether or not you are a huge B movie fan like myself, you probably have at least some picture of what Cannon is generally associated with. Naturally, I am talking about their action movies, movies with Michael Dudikoff, Charles Bronson, and Chuck Norris, with a healthy dash of ninjas thrown in, as well as various other kinds of B grade action movies like clones of the Indiana Jones series. Action definitely was Cannon's bread and butter, but with that conclusion often comes the fact the studio put out other kinds of movies, albeit not in such great number as action movies. For example, Cannon did release several horror movies, such as The Godsend, X-Ray, and Schizoid. If you haven't heard of those movies, it's understandable, since those movies were pretty bad. Cannon didn't seem to have a good grip when it came to horror. And when it came to comedy, Cannon seemed to stumble one way or another each time. Oh, Detective School Dropouts and Surrender were funny, and Making The Grade was kind of amusing at times, but their performances on the market were dismal. Other Cannon comedies that were a lot worse, like Dutch Treat, Hot Resort, and Hot Chili were understandably commercial and critical duds. I think Cannon's bad track record when it came to comedies came from the fact that the leaders of Cannon, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, were raised in a culture much different than in America. Every foreign country has its own style of humor, and what works in one country doesn't necessarily work in another country. About the only kind of movie humor that is universal is slapstick, and even then, sometimes tweaks need to be made in order for it to fully work in a particular territory.

I think Golan and Globus did deep down realize that comedy wasn't Cannon's forte; witness the fact that Hot Chili, which had a script written by Golan himself, had Golan choose to use a pseudonym for his screenwriter role. So it's a little surprising that in the late 1980s, when Golan was ousted out of Cannon, his staying behind cousin Globus decided to make two more Cannon comedies. Possibly Globus was thinking that too many cooks might have spoiled Cannon's comedy broth... but apparently, he didn't consider the idea that two heads are sometimes better than one. Anyway, one of the two post-Golan comedy Globus produced was Rockula, a musical-horror-comedy that I thought was pretty unfunny. The second of these movies was A Man Called Sarge. Now, when I sat down to watch that second movie, my hopes weren't high, to put it mildly. So why did I watch it? Well, I had heard reports it was a comedy in the style of movies like Airplane! You know, a rapid flow of gags, spoofs of certain films, characters that are goofy but are played straight... How could Cannon pull off such a movie, not just for the fact that Golan was gone, but Cannon was on its last legs at that point? My great interest in finding that answer explains why I sat down to watch the movie. The events of this comedy take place during World War II, specifically in the vicinity of the city of Tobruk in North Africa. In Tobruk, the German forces are being led by one General Klaus Von Kraut (Marc Singer, The Beastmaster), and Kraut and his troops are guarding a key fuel depot. Around the same time, one Sarge "Duke" Roscoe (Gary Kroeger, Saturday Night Live), a former Foreign Legion soldier, has left the Legion with four of his most trusted soldiers in order to join the Allied Forces. All the same, these four are a bunch of really ragtag soldiers (to put it kindly), all from different backgrounds. There is a sleazy New York hoodlum (Bobby Di Cicco, The Philadelphia Experiment), a Jewish greenhorn (Howard Busgang, Terror Train), a burly Native American (Andi Bumatai, Aloha Summer), and a fat country bumpkin (Travis McKenna, Real Men). During their travels, they hook up with a British force lead by one Major Leslie Browning (Andy Greenhalgh), and eventually free the leader of the local Free French movement, one Colonel Henri Cheval (Michael Mears), a singing/dancing clone of Maurice Chevalier. Once they are all banded together, they get orders from Allied command - they are to infiltrate Tobruk and blow up the Nazi fuel depot there so that the Axis powers will be deprived of fuel.

If you have seen your share of Airplane!-styled movies, you probably know what the drill is for an Airplane!-style movie to work. Obviously, you need humor that is actually funny, but this humor not only has to unfold at a rapid one gag after another pace, you need a capable cast with capable characters to deliver this humor properly. It's probably best that I take an examination of the humor to be found in A Man Called Sarge. When it comes to whether it's delivered at that aforementioned rapid pace, the movie definitely delivers on this factor. This can be seen in the first five minutes of the movie, where I counted (at least) twenty-one gags of various kinds, from visual gags to goofy dialogue. For example, the name of a mosque is given as "Ben Casey Ben Casey", Kraut drives his tank to the entrance of his headquarters and lets a parking lot attendant take care of the tank, the movie's narrator (the legendary Don LaFontaine, narrator for dozens of Hollywood movie trailers) labels Kraut as, "one sour Kraut", and there is an homage to a running gag from the popular TV show SCTV. These (and other) gags in the first five minutes of the movie might sound obvious and unfunny as writing on your computer screen, but do you know what? I did laugh at some of these opening gags. And after those first five minutes, I did find a number of other gags that make me laugh, chuckle, or smile. Some of the highlights include one character putting his hands in front of his face so we get the standard "binocular" filter shown in countless movies, and background gags like a blink-and-you'll-miss-it piece of writing on a school's blackboard. And main character Sarge has plenty of quips, such as his determination to help the British so that subsequently they'll drive on "the right side of the road", or comparing women to poison ivy (when you rub against them, everything starts to swell.)

There are more gags that amused me, but I don't want to spoil any more of them. Yes, what I mentioned might not read as funny... but on the screen, such gags were (sometimes) funny. It is a combination of things that make these and other successful gags in A Man From Sarge work. First, the cast knows how to deliver the humor. While the cast is made up of minor actors and outright unknowns (the biggest "name" performer in the movie is a famous American athlete who makes a cameo), these relative unknowns perform with humorous gusto. Marc Singer is the highlight of the cast - he devours the scenery with relish, and is a lot of fun to watch. Michael Mears is in close second with his absolutely overblown portrayal of a stereotypical Frenchman. They and the other cast members act wonderfully goofy, yet usually not in an way that seems to suggest they are in on the joke despite going over the top at times, so even when they have to deliver a dud of a gag, they give it a little life all the same. You will like their characters, so you'll accept much of what they have to give to you. Second, writer/director Stuart Gillard (RocketMan) does his part to inject energy into the narrative. The story moves briskly from scene to scene, and there are a variety of locations, which prevents the movie from ever becoming dull and lacking punch. However, some of this "punch" is the kind that socks you in the gut and makes you groan out loud. There is a considerable amount of humor that doesn't work. Some gags were old hat in movies several decades earlier, like the portly bumpkin creating an earthquake when he falls down, men dressed in women's clothing (this happens more than once), and footage being sped up Benny Hill-like style (this also happens more than once). Most of the gags in the movie are more original, though even then quite a few are very unfunny. When an American teacher (Gretchen German) sings to her Arab students a song titled Jesus Was A Black Dude, it's a bit too obvious to really work. Earlier in the movie when Major Browning and his men are preparing to parachute from a plane, we very briefly see a soldier in clown makeup before he disappears from the movie forever. That's supposed to be funny? Then when Sarge and his men distract Kraut and his men by having his Jewish private with the exclamation, "There's a Jew here!" - well, then the humor gets problematic.

To sum up the humor in A Man Called Sarge, I would say that the first third of the movie is funny enough to stand its head up (relatively) unashamed against the likes of Airplane!, the middle portion's humor is uneven (but still with some good zany gags), and the humor delivery in the last third of the movie starts to really drag considerably a great deal of the time. It's not just this shrinking humor that at times makes the movie kind of feel like a first draft, where Gillard got more tired as he was typing. For one thing, the story of the movie is told pretty awfully. The Tobruk mission I mentioned earlier in this review actually doesn't start to get planned and executed until well more than half of the running time has passed. Also, the story can't seem to make up its mind whether the heroes are to blow up the fuel reserves... or not. Various major things happen to characters without them and other characters dealing and discussing the consequences. In fact, while the characters in the movie can be funny, they aren't written with much more character development than what you experience from your average stand up comedian in front of a brick wall. And the execution of the major part of the mission only lasts a few seconds, followed by the protagonists in peril... until they are saved by what can kindly be called a deus ex machina gesture by Gillard. Some post-production patch-ups, like when LaFontaine temporarily stops narrating so that Busang's character can narrate a few lines (for no clear reason) are very obvious. I will give Gillard kudos for obviously doing the best that he could away from Hollywood and with limited resources and funds, managing to generate some visual punch at times. And also managing to make the movie really funny at times, though as I pointed out earlier, a lot of gags would still have flopped even if Gillard had more time and money on his hands. A Man Called Sarge can be called a really mixed bag; there's about as much good in the movie as bad. However, if you are a Cannon Films addict, then this is a must to see. Cannon Films attempting to make their own gag-a-second movie just like what the ZAZ boys did with Airplane!, Top Secret, and The Naked Gun? How could you resist that once in a lifetime occurrence? This Cannon addict admits he couldn't, and he also admits he doesn't really have too much regret afterwards.

(Posted January 19, 2023)