No Time for Sergeants (1958)

Director:

Mervyn LeRoy

Writers:

Mac Hyman (novel)
Ira Levin (play) ...

Release Date:

27 June 1958 (West Germany)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Will Stockdale is a country bumpkin drafted into the Air Force and too dumb to realize he's driving everyone around him crazy -- no one more than Sgt. King.

Plot Keywords:

Jump From Airplane | Bar Fight | Airplane Accident | Bathroom Scene | Farm

Cast

Andy Griffith	...	Pvt. Will Stockdale
Myron McCormick	...	Sgt. Orville C. King
Nick Adams	...	Pvt. Benjamin B. Whitledge
Murray Hamilton	...	Irving S. Blanchard
Howard Smith	...	Maj. Gen. Eugene Bush
Will Hutchins	...	Lt. George Bridges (pilot)
Sydney Smith	...	Maj. Gen. Vernon Pollard
James Millhollin	...	Maj. Royal B. Demming (psychiatrist)
Don Knotts	...	Cpl. John C. Brown (Dexterity)
Jean Willes	...	WAF captain
Bartlett Robinson	...	Captain
Henry McCann	...	Lt. Cover
Dub Taylor	...	McKinney (draft board man)
William Fawcett	...	Pa Stockdale
Raymond Bailey	...	Base Colonel

Runtime:

119 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-12 | Sweden:Btl

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Mac Hyman based his best selling novel on his experiences growing up in Cordele, Georgia and as a navigator in the Army Air Corps during World War II.

Quotes:

[Will and Ben are waiting in the General's office and hear the ceremony over the P.A]
Voice of announcer: General Bush has just taken his place on the reviewing stand. And now the four lieutenants who braved the atomic blast and will receive the air medal are bravely mounting the platform.
Benjamin B. Whitledge: The lieutenants? They're alive! They're gettin' medals! They're heroes!
Will Stockdale: Gollee!
Benjamin B. Whitledge: If we'd a stayed on the plane, we'd a been heroes.
Voice of announcer: It is a solemn moment, ladies and gentlemen. The many visiting dignitaries standing at attention; the flag at half-mast in honor of the two men who gave their lives in Operation Prometheus: Privates Stockdale and Whitledge.
Will Stockdale, Benjamin B. Whitledge: [together] Stockdale and Whitledge?
Voice of announcer: Yes. Stockdale and Whitledge... names that will live as long as men are free.
Will Stockdale: We are heroes, Ben!
Benjamin B. Whitledge: But we ain't dead!
[...]

Movie Connections:

Followed by "No Time for Sergeants" (1964)

No Time for Sergeants is my FAVORITE movie of all times!

I remember seeing it as a little girl and still try to watch it every time it airs. I even have it on tape. It is simple, clean, and hilarious. I love it because it makes me laugh each and every time I see it and it never gets old to me. The people that play the characters are perfect for their parts. Andy Griffith is a real southern man playing a simple southerner and he is superb! No one else could have done Will Stockdale better. I love his description of his first days in military service ("mashin' our tongues down with popsicle sticks...wompin' our knees with little rubber hammers.."); his duty as PLO - Permanent Latrine Orderly - to glean a favor from the Captain ("it was my aim to get it clean as that room where they gonna cut out yor heart"); buddy Ben; getting class-i-fied; Sgt. King "the best danged Sergeant in the whole danged Air Force"; and finally being a hero "air man".