Reconnecting with Roz: 'Never Wave at a WAC'

Rosalind Russell was a rare bird: beautiful, smart, stylish funny and absolutely magnetic onscreen. Tonight I “discovered” a 1953 gem I’d never seen before:  Never Wave at a WAC, which also stars the terribly underrated Paul Douglas and classic “handsome actor”, William Ching.

Russell plays a D.C. socialite, the spoiled daughter of a senator, who joins the army so she can get a free ticket to Paris and be with her new beau (Ching).  Her father, however, thinks the army would be good for her, and rather than pulling strings to get her the officer’s commission she expects, he sees to it that she goes through boot camp as a private, which of course, challenges everything she knows about herself and how the world works.  But there’s more ahead, as her ex-husband (Douglas), who clearly still loves her, is creating specialized garments for the military, and requests her for special testing of new uniforms and gear for Arctic conditions.  He puts her through a frozen hell in a testing chamber, and she stands up to it all, impressing him and proving to herself that there’s more to her than parties and charm.

For those of us in the midlife crisis zone, this all sounds very Private Benjamin, and Goldie Hawn may well have had this film in mind when she donned her helmet nearly three decades later.  But the original stands on its own, and will surely be a new favorite, despite quite a few tolerable anachronisms and plenty of sexism.

Finding a classic romantic comedy like this is a beautiful thing for a movie junkie like me, and this prompted an awful lot of giggles, which begs the question of why it’s not one of the classics in regular rotation today.  With clever writing, strong performances and an almost (sorta/kinda) believable premise, the film is comedic without being over-the-top campy, and the relationships are surprisingly believable, e.g. the verbal pacing is quick, but not so revved up that it’s stagey.  Director Norman Z. McLeod clearly possessed a gift for pacing and “bits” at almost the Easter Egg level, and yet the conversations and situations somehow seem as if they could actually have happened -- the dialogue is snappy, but surprisingly relatable.  Even still, it’s definitely a product of its age, and is connected to the Korean conflict rather than WW2, which may partially explain why it hasn’t remained in the pantheon.  But it’s fun and well worth a look.

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Never Wave at a WAC

Divorced society hostess Jo McBain (Russell) decides to join the Women's Army Corps to be closer to her boyfriend Lt. Colonel Sky Fairchild (Ching), in Paris. Jo thinks that her high connections in Washington, D.C., will help her get out of the service at any time she desires. However, her ex-husband decides to teach Jo a lesson by influencing his own army contacts to give her a difficult time in her new army life. A secondary plot follows scene-stealing, well-endowed former chorus girl Clara Schneiderman joining the WACS alongside Jo to escape the legions of men who pursue her.

(1953) -- Duration 1:26
Directed by Norman Z. McLeod
Starring: Rosalind Russell, Paul Douglas, Marie Wilson

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