Number two in Neil Simon’s autobiographical play trilogy reached the screen under the direction of Mike Nichols.
This one is ‘opened up’ more than Brighton Beach Memoirs but its tale of cadet training days at Boot Camp in Mississippi still seems all mouth and little movement, with lots of dim mirth and rites-of-passage moralising.
Matthew Broderick plays the Neil Simon alter ego, Eugene Jerome, negotiating ethnic tensions, japes in the dorm and the hurdles of a stagey script.
But Christopher Walken steals the film as the flaky psycho drill Sergeant, Toomey (pictured at right).
Eugene Morris Jerome
Matthew Broderick
Sgt. Toomey
Christopher Walken
Joseph Wykowski
Matt Mulhern
Arnold B. Epstein
Corey Parker
Roy Selridge
Markus Flanagan
Don Carney
Casey Siemaszko
James J. Hennesey
Michael Dolan
Daisy
Penelope Ann Miller
Rowena
Park Overall
Peek
Alan Pottinger
Pinelli
Mark Evan Jacobs
Director
Mike Nichols
