Major Bernard Benson (Charlton Heston), noted for advancing with his mouth before thinking, is given a choice to be drummed out of the Army or take command of and shape up the ROTC programme at Sheridan Academy (which is run by nuns) before it fails its next inspection.
Heston knocked off this dated but likeable comedy while on a month-long lay-off during the shooting of DeMille’s gargantuan The Ten Commandments.
Heston’s intense physicality is often the source of the comedy and the Oscar-nominated script sometimes seems like a fusion of From Here to Eternity (1953) and Rebel without a Cause (1955), delivering the message that in the postwar era the US military needn’t be for tough nuts only.
Major Bernard Benson
Charlton Heston
Dr Kay Lambert
Julie Adams
John
William Demarest
Cadet Sergeant Hibler
Tim Considine
Cadet Colonel Dusik
Sal Mineo
Mother Redempta
Nana Bryant
Mrs Flaherty
Kay Stewart
Director
Jerry Hopper