Imitation General

I recorded a couple of films during Glenn Ford's turn as Star of the Month last month. One that I hadn't blogged about before but is on DVD courtesy of the Warner Archive is Imitation General.

The title, as you'll see, is actually fairly descriptive. The scene is France in August 1944, a time when the Allies were busy pushing the Nazis out of the country fur, not having fully done so, still faced stiff resistance. Some pockets of troops got too far ahead of the rest and got cut off and surrounded by the Germans. Glenn Ford stars as Master Sergeant Murphy Savage, driver to Brigadier General Lane (Kent Smith). They meet straggling US Army soldiers, and try to get them to round out as many other officers and soldiers in the area as they can.

Savage and Lane, and the third man in their unit, Cpl. Derby (Red Buttons), eventually come upon a farmhouse, and they check to see if it's safe to enter. Surprisingly, it's occupied not by the Nazis, but by a woman who seems to have been abandoned by events, Simone (Taina Elg), acting almost as if there's been no war in the area. Simone only speaks French, and Gen. Lane is the only one who speaks it.

While doing a bit of scouting just outside the farmhouse, Gen. Lane gets shot by a Nazi sniper and killed. That threatens to destroy the entire unit, until Savage comes up with an idea. Gen. Lane had talked about the importance for moral of having a real general out in the field with the enlisted men, as if that's the only way these separated soldiers would be able to fight their way out of the mess they're in. So Savage decides that he'd better play the part of the general so that the men will hvae a real leader.

There are a couple of problems with this idea, the first being that it's quite contrary to army regulations, to the point that if Savage is found out, he'll be court-martialed. And there are already a couple of people in the area who saw the general; surely they'll notice. More worrisome is that Savage discovers an old rival, Pvt. Hutchmeyer (Tige Andrews) is among the soldiers in the area. Savage was apparently involved in getting Hutchmeyer busted back down to private, so the guy would definitely like some revenge.

Gen. Lane's suggestion that the men seeing a general fighting out in the field would be good for morale actually turns out to be right. Showing up at the farmhouse is Cpl. Sellers (Dean Jones), a man suffering from battle fatigue. Savage as the general is able to whip him back into some semblance of shape and get him out to fight the Nazis. Still, it's going to be tough to break out.

Imitation General is a movie that was billed as a comedy, but one that I found to be more of a light drama. The comedy bits, especially with Hutchmeyer at the end, didn't really work, although the story as a whole does work reasonably well. This is nothing particularly great, but also nothing particularly terrible. It's something that I'd watch once, and have no strong desire to watch again. But judge for yourself.