With recent releases like The Naked Gun (2025) and The Fall Guy (2024), one might possess a false presumption that the adaptation or transition from broadcast programming to theatrical is a recent feature of modern entertainment. Even if the ‘90s made it seem so with films like The Addams Family (1991), The Brady Bunch (1995), Sgt. Bilko (1996), The Avengers (1998), and The Mod Squad (1999), or the ‘10s with The A-Team (2010) and Absolutely Fabulous (2016). Not to mention the litany of titles in the ‘80s and ‘00s, there’s really been no shortage of adapted entertainment. Often, when there’s been success on the small screen, there’s been a movement to bring that excitement onto the silver screen, as was the case with the 1964 release, McHale’s Navy, directed by Edward Montagne (The Reluctant Astronaut), written by Frank Gill Jr. (Brazil (1944)) and George Carleton Brown (Youth on Parade), featuring all the characters from the show that audiences loved. The 1964 title would mark the transition from black-and-white broadcast to technicolor and has been released by Universal Pictures on DVD, brandishing not a single bonus material. Beloved as the show was, the question becomes how well it holds up with a new perspective in a different era.
While out on a routine donation drop-off at an orphanage in the South Pacific, the rest of the seamen under the command of Lt. Commander Quinton McHale (Ernest Borgnine) decide to expand the usual horse race betting by inviting in members of the military stationed in the area. At first, this increase in traffic appears to be a profitable situation until it turns out that everyone placed a bet on the winner and McHale can’t pay it all out. This put Captain Wallace Binghamton (Joe Flynn) on McHale’s trail as he’s always looking for a reason to court martial the Lt. Commander and he’s on the way to catch them in the act. Now McHale has to figure out how to pay back all the bets and get Binghamton off his back while also dealing with trouble Ensign Charles Parker (Tim Conway) finds himself in trying to defend a woman, Andrea (Claudine Longet), from businessman Henri Le Clerc (George Kennedy) in nearby New Caledonia. If it’s not one thing for the crew of PT-73, it’s another.
What follows is based on a retail review copy provided by Allied Vaughn.
As more and more digital access points are shut down and materials audiences want to see are removed to make room for other properties, owning copies of the things you enjoy becomes ever more important, leading to a resurgence in the demand for physical media. It’s hard to say what the audience is for a theatrical title of a TV show from the 1960s, but there was enough of an audience for there to be a legacy sequel in the form of 1997’s Bryan Spicer-directed McHale’s Navy starring Tom Arnold (Touch) as McHale and series star Borgnine as the original/his father. Seeing as the folks who saw it in ‘97 are likely to have adult people money now, resurfacing the ‘64 film might be desirable for folks who want to see some of the original program. This edition, released by Universal Pictures, is basic and bare-bones: a standard definition restoration in basic DVD packaging, a revised liner with a new cover and back design, and no bonus features at all. Viewers are offered little more than subtitles and, considering there doesn’t appear to be a trailer anywhere on the internet for the film, it’s likely there isn’t one to include anyway.
Thankfully, if you’re a fan of the film, the on-disc presentation is solid. Viewed on a 4K UHD Sony television with a 4K UHD Panasonic player, the colors are vibrant for the era and the details are present (something which aids in many of the jokes). A downside is that we can more obviously tell when there’s a set or whether a scene is on-location, as well as props versus the real thing (say, a horse), but that provides the presentation a bit of charm. Of course, this can also be attributed somewhat to more knowledge/awareness of how the films were shot then-vs.-now. The audio track is 2.0 Dolby Digital mono and comes through nice and clean. In both the video and audio presentations, there’s no apparent grime, distortion, or aging, showing that this restoration was not done with a lack of care. Unfortunately, there’s no information about the restoration process beyond the name of the company who did it, Sony DADC New Media Solutions, which is displayed at the end of the film and credits.
As someone less familiar with the program and more so with the ‘97 feature, the premise of McHale’s Navy brought to mind a unique theatrical experience, but the script by Gill Jr. and Brown is more like several television episodes connected via one larger overarching problem. The film is almost rhythmic in the way that it sets up a problem and presents a solution to the first problem before introducing a new one. Each time Binghampton catches McHale, McHale finds a loophole to get out of trouble. It’s not that the film doesn’t entertain, but it’s incredibly predictable and it’s almost always due to the hijinks of Parker, thereby making one wonder how someone keeps a role of ensign given the sheer number of bullets this seaman nearly puts into his fellows. This is the program’s schtick and Conway (The Carol Burnett Show) is a legendary physical comedian, but the repetition of joke (even if the premise is different) remains the same: Parker does something inane that likely, if not potentially, makes things worse for McHale. For much of this picture, Conway is partnered with Flynn (The Rescuers) and the two are hilarious, one just wishes for a different joke. Similarly, there’s some material that doesn’t age well at all, like the presentation of the South Pacific Islanders (why are all the children wearing stereotypical attire?); the inclusion of Yoshio Yoda’s Fuji Kobiaji, a war prisoner-turned-cohort who speaks poor English and often speaks in then-popular catch phrases; and the use of slur for Japanese combatants in World War II (Japan’s Japanese name being Nippon). Just as there are things on television now that will be unseemly in a decade, it’s perfectly fine to acknowledge that a popular program that ran from 1962-1966 which spawned three features was, perhaps, historically accurate yet still out of line. Using such a slur and maintaining such a presentation of enemy combatants may have been meant to uplift “regular Americans,” but doing so also upholds the notion that the people sent to the Japanese internment camps from Feb 1942 – March 1946 in a form of “American justice” deserved to be there by mere virtue of their family’s country of origin versus any other measurable, logical reason.
Physical media preservation, regardless of how one feels about a film, ensures that the stories we’ve told aren’t lost to history. Without the ability to put our hands on the actual art, whether it be song, picture, or print, means that anyone can claim what it is or what it never was. It means that we can’t examine what came before in order to understand what came after and, therefore, have a greater handle on what is being produced now. If you think that filmmakers and artists of today aren’t in some way inspired by the art they grew up with, then you may have a misunderstanding of the origin of art and the way the things we appreciate (or don’t) help define our perspectives. If McHale’s Navy is that to you, then you likely enjoy it for what it is, even while recognizing what shouldn’t be brought forward with it.
No bonus features available on this release.
Re-released on DVD April 22nd, 2025.
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Categories: Home Release, Home Video, Recommendation, Reviews
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