Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

Last evening Ol’ Robbo watched “Hell Is For Heroes” (1962).  It’s a WWII movie in which a small company of GI’s have to fool the Germans into believing their force is much larger than it actually is in order to keep the Krauts from punching through their section of the line.

Turns out the film is, well, less than memorable.  It wasn’t actually bad, but nothing about it – plot, character development, dialogue – really grabbed my interest.

As a matter of fact, what caused me to drop the thing in my Netflix queue in the first place was the cast:  Steve McQueen plays the glowering cynic orchestrating the big sham.  (Alas, there’s none of the sly humor that underlies so many of his really great roles.)  He’s supported by the likes of James Colburn, Fess Parker, and Bobby Darin.  I found myself disappointed that the film didn’t make more of this bunch.

On the other hand, the film also introduces to the screen the young Bob Newhart.  And damme if his big scene doesn’t feature one of his patented telephone routines!

Those of you old enough that I need not tell you to get off my lawn will appreciate that.

And seeing Ol’ Bob reminds me that I do not believe I have ever seen “Catch-22“.  Somehow I got it in my head years and years ago that this was a truly bad movie, but some comments I saw somewhere recently suggest otherwise.  I suppose it’s worth a dekko.  (Oh, I just checked my queue and see that it’s already at the top.  Guess I was thinking the same thing when I loaded the thing up some months back.  Great minds and all that, right?)