I don't know why this movie isn't funnier. Jim Hutton, Donald Pleasance, Brian Keith, Dub Taylor, and Martin Landau all have great comic credentials, and Burt Lancaster, Lee Remick, and John Anderson have also done serviceable comic bits in their long, illustrious careers.
I paid money to see this flick in the theaters forty years ago, and have watched it several times on TV, most recently on TCM this week, which was my first viewing in many years. My final conclusion is that the writing and the direction underestimated the viewing audience's collective sense of humor by an order of several magnitudes.
The narration is too pointed, the jokes are all telegraphed, and some of them are not as funny as they should be. The potential for the early scenes where Lancaster and Anderson think that the fort is being besieged based on the bugle calls and cannon fire just doesn't have the impact it should have at the denouement, when the troopers come charging into the fort, and the climactic scene with the popping champagne bottles was foreshadowed, also. Finally, the escape of the whiskey bottles from the quicksand bog should've occurred without any hints.
The movie is watchable, and even fun to watch, but not as good as it should have been. Sort of like watching Jim Thome hit a mile high fly ball which is pulled in by an outfielder who reaches over the fence.
I paid money to see this flick in the theaters forty years ago, and have watched it several times on TV, most recently on TCM this week, which was my first viewing in many years. My final conclusion is that the writing and the direction underestimated the viewing audience's collective sense of humor by an order of several magnitudes.
The narration is too pointed, the jokes are all telegraphed, and some of them are not as funny as they should be. The potential for the early scenes where Lancaster and Anderson think that the fort is being besieged based on the bugle calls and cannon fire just doesn't have the impact it should have at the denouement, when the troopers come charging into the fort, and the climactic scene with the popping champagne bottles was foreshadowed, also. Finally, the escape of the whiskey bottles from the quicksand bog should've occurred without any hints.
The movie is watchable, and even fun to watch, but not as good as it should have been. Sort of like watching Jim Thome hit a mile high fly ball which is pulled in by an outfielder who reaches over the fence.