Sergeants 3 (1962)

The Rat Pack team up for another celluloid goof-off in a Wild West retread of Gunga Din with Sammy Davis Jr. in the role of the freed slave who would do anything to fight alongside the mighty white cavalrymen – especially buddies-to-the-death sergeants Mike Merry (Frank Sinatra), Chip Deal (Dean Martin) and Larry Barrett (Peter Lawford) – in the war against the Injuns.

Highlights are the two wonderfully comic fights – one in a saloon against the local buffalo hunters and one in a shanty town against the Injuns with our heroes using dynamite, bows and arrows, fireworks, rifles, tomahawks and pistols with equal dexterity. Through it all, Dino smokes a nonchalant cigar (handy, after all, for lighting sticks of dynamite).

There is also a very funny poker game with ironmongery for stakes in which bids are matched with a bradawl, raised with a rasp, matched with a file, and raised with a monkey wrench.

Bing Crosby’s sons, Phillip, Dennis and Lindsay, appear in supporting roles.

The film was shot in Utah (with prostitutes flown in and paid as extras), and when the Rat Pack boys got bored, they would drop in at the Sands or some other LA joint and break up the headline act with their own unique mess of crude jokes, ad-libs and half-songs.

First Sgt. Mike Merry
Frank Sinatra
Sgt. Chip Deal
Dean Martin
Jonah Williams
Sammy Davis Jr.
Sgt. Larry Barrett
Peter Lawford
Sgt-Maj. Roger Boswell
Joey Bishop
Mountain Hawk
Henry Silva
Amelia Parent
Ruta Lee
Willie Sharpknife
Buddy Lester
Cpl. Ellis
Phillip Crosby
Pvt. Page
Dennis Crosby
Pvt. Wills
Lindsay Crosby
Blacksmith
Hank Henry
Col. William Collingwood
Dick Simmons
Watanka
Michael Pate
Caleb
Armand Alzamora
White Eagle
Richard Hale
Morton
Mickey Finn
Corporal
Sonny King
Ghost Dancer
Eddie Little Sky

Director
John Sturges

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