The Private Navy of Sgt OFarrell

Plot summary

Master Sergeant Dan O'Farrell is a G.I. on an island somewhere in the South Pacific during World War II, bemoaning the consequences of a ship torpedoed while ferrying to the island a desperately needed cargo of beer.

Among his problems are the Navy personnel making life difficult for him and his Army buddies, an officer trying to emulate John Paul Jones, a hoped-for delivery of morale-boosting nurses turning out to be six men, the ugliest woman (Diller) ever to wilt a bouquet of flowers, and a Japanese soldier who has been hiding from everyone else and hiding something else as well.

Cast

Production

The film was an original story which was purchased by producer John Beck in 1965. He tried to set the project up at MGM, but after Bob Hope was attached, it was made via United Artists, where Hope had a deal in association with NBC. The movie was filmed in Puerto Rico in 1967; it was originally to have been filmed in Hawaii, but due to the activity during the Vietnam War, the US Department of Defense, which cooperated with the production, suggested the filming move to the Caribbean.