the Desk Commando

 McHale's Navy - 3x04 - McHale, the Desk Commando

McHale's Navy is an American sitcom starring Ernest Borgnine that aired 138 half-hour episodes over four seasons, from October 11, 1962, to April 12, 1966, on the ABC television network. The series was filmed in black and white and originated from a one-hour drama titled "Seven Against the Sea", broadcast on April 3, 1962 as part of the Alcoa Premiere anthology series. The ABC series spawned three feature films: McHale's Navy (1964); a sequel, McHale's Navy Joins the Air Force (1965); and a 1997 sequel-remake of the original series.

"Seven Against the Sea" (1962)[edit]

Academy Award–winning dramatic actor Ernest Borgnine first appeared as Quinton McHale in an hour-long one-shot drama called "Seven Against the Sea",^[1] which aired as an episode of Alcoa Premiere in 1962, an ABC dramatic anthology also known as Fred Astaire's Premiere Theatre and hosted by Fred Astaire, who introduced television audiences to the Quinton McHale character.^[2] It is considered the pilot show for the series although it is an hour-long drama instead of a half-hour situation comedy and is starkly different in tone.

Plot[edit]

Ron Foster as Lieutenant Durham and Ernest Borgnine as McHale from "Seven Against the Sea", 1962

During World War II, Lieutenant Commander Quinton McHale (Borgnine) is the commanding officer of the U.S. Navy PT boat PT-73, stationed at the Pacific island base of Taratupa. In the late spring of 1942, the Japanese heavily bomb the island, destroying the base. Only 18 of 150 naval aviators and Marines on the base survive. With Japanese patrols in the region too heavy for a Navy rescue mission, McHale and his men survive by hiding on the island. Assisted by the native tribes whom they befriend, the sailors live a pleasant island existence. After months of leisurely life, strait-laced, by-the-book Annapolis graduate Lieutenant Durham (Ron Foster) parachutes onto the island. His job is to assume duties as McHale's executive officer and help him get the base on Taratupa back into action.

Durham faces an uphill battle: The men have gone native. One man has started a native laundry service, and McHale operates a still, making moonshine for the men and the natives. In addition, McHale is friendly with the native chief and even bathes with him. When Durham informs McHale of his orders, McHale refuses to follow them. It is clear that while McHale is as loyal as any American, following the devastation caused by the Japanese on the island, he is reluctant to risk losing more men. His concern now is for their survival until they can be rescued, which creates friction between Durham and McHale.

When they get word that a Marine battalion is pinned on a beach and an enemy cruiser is planning to attack the beachhead in the morning, McHale's attitude changes. McHale is ordered to use all his boats to protect the beachhead and the Marines, but he has no boats, since the Japanese sank them all. However, McHale manages to capture a Japanese PT boat patrolling the island. Surprising the men and Durham, McHale does not plan to use the boat to evacuate his men or the Marine battalion. Instead, he will attack and destroy the Japanese cruiser. He estimates that since they are on a Japanese boat, flying a Japanese flag, they can move in and torpedo the cruiser twice and send it to the bottom.

"Seven Against the Sea" is available for public viewing at the Paley Center for Media (formerly the Museum of Television and Radio) in New York City and Los Angeles.

Cast[edit]

• Ernest Borgnine as Lieutenant Commander Quinton McHale
• Joe Flynn as Captain Wallace B. (Wally) Binghamton
• Tim Conway as Ensign Charles Parker
• Bob Hastings as Lieutenant Elroy Carpenter
• Carl Ballantine as Torpedoman's Mate Lester Gruber
• Gary Vinson as Quartermaster "Christy" Christopher
• Billy Sands as Motor Machinist Mate "Tinker" Bell
• Edson Stroll as Gunner's Mate Virgil Edwards
• John Wright as Radioman Willy Moss
• Gavin McLeod as Seaman Happy Haines (1962–1964, 73 episodes)
• Yoshio Yoda as Fuji

Response[edit]

This episode of an early dramatic anthology series received respectable ratings and ABC ordered a series. The series requested by the network was significantly different in tone from the pilot. In an interview in Cinema Retro magazine, Borgnine said the show was meant as a vehicle for Ron Foster, who was to be contracted to Universal Pictures, but that did not work out. Producer Jennings Lang recalled the film Destination Gobi inspiring a half-hour comedy with the Borgnine character's PT boat.^[3] The lead character in Destination Gobi, played by Richard Widmark, was named McHale.

McHale's Navy (1962–1966)[edit]

Ernest Borgnine in McHale's Navy

This military service comedy series was set in the Pacific theatre of World War II—for the last season, the setting changed to the European theater in Italy—and focused on antics of the misfit crew of PT-73 led by Lieutenant Commander Quinton McHale, played by Borgnine. The producer, Edward Montagne, had enjoyed success with The Phil Silvers Show (1955–1959), a military comedy about an opportunistic non-commissioned officer and his loyal platoon putting loony things over on the camp commander. While the pilot had been dramatic, with overtones of Henry Fonda's introspective Mister Roberts, Montagne turned the "McHale" project into "Bilko in the Navy" and recruited Sergeant Bilko actors and writers.

However, unlike The Phil Silvers Show, which was set in peacetime, McHale's Navy was set during World War II, although much of what takes place is, in some ways, as if it were peacetime with the crew permanently stationed in one location and concerns about peacetime duties rather than fighting a war. At the time of the series, then-President John F. Kennedy was known as the wartime commander of PT-109. A popular book, PT 109: John F. Kennedy in WWII by Robert J. Donovan came out the previous year and PT-109 was referenced in the episode "Jolly Wally".

Plot[edit]

The basic plot is that McHale's crew schemes to make money, attract women and enjoy themselves, and the efforts of Captain Binghamton (McHale's superior) to rid himself of the PT-73 crew for good, either by transfer or court martial. Although they often get into trouble, they typically manage to get out of it. Despite their scheming, conniving, and often lazy and unmilitary ways, McHale's crew is always successful in combat in the end. This bears close resemblance to the British radio programme The Navy Lark, broadcast around the same period.

The entire show is based on only two locations, one in the South Pacific at a fictional base called Taratupa — the inferred location (first episode) is islands north of New Zealand — and an equally fictional town in Italy called Voltafiore. The first few episodes merely indicate it is "somewhere in the South Pacific 1943." While in the South Pacific, McHale's crew lives on "McHale's Island", across the bay from Taratupa. It keeps them away from the main base, where they are free to carry out their antics and even fight the war. In the final season, Binghamton and the entire PT-73 crew move to the liberated Italian theater to the town of Voltafiore "in Southern Italy" "in late 1944."