A rainy, dreary Thursday evening on the shores of Silver lake Camp Ma-Ho-Ge was the scene. After dinner the evening activity was a movie shown in the recreation hall. Mchale's Navy Joins the Airforce in color. My first glimpse of the sitcom in glorious color. The movie begins with a sabotaged PT boat belonging to the bombastic Lieutenant Elroy Carpenter (Bob Hastings). His commanding officer and foil in chief Captain Binghamton (Joe Flynn) takes over Mchale's Pt 73 boat and travels to Australia with Mchale's crew complete with most of the regulars from the sit-com. Tim Conway as Ensign Parker. But the movie has an empty feel about it due to McHale's Absence. Uniform switching and mistaken identity are the premise here with Ted Bessel warming up his acting skills for his future co-starring role in That Girl. If your a huge fan of the series how was it possible to have a movie without it's star Ernest Borgnine? During the whole movie you would wonder or hope that Ernie at least would make a cameo in this slow moving,frustrating and down right dull picture. Watching Flynn belittle Conway was hard to watch. Abbott and Costello they were NOT! Ted Bessel's character doesn't even fill the void in this bomb. Prior to his death I met Ernie at a book signing in New York City and he told me it was one of the greatest honors to have your character's name in a title and not be present. Ernie was in the California desert working on another film called THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX at the time of this production. A Jeep falling out of an airplane couldn't save this lemon.
