We open with the boys returning from a party with the nurses, finding Fuji upset that he couldn't go-as if he really didn't understand that if he was discovered, he'd have to go to a regular stockade and be a regular POW instead of the tremendous situation he has, being treated like a buddy, freedom to move about the island, and all, and even share in some of the duties the other men would otherwise do, keeping him from being bored, and being of use to his newfound friends.
McHale explains how if he was spotted, he'd be a regular prison, and Fuji just says he feels like he's in a prison now. The phone rings and Chuck answers it. In just a few seconds, Captain Binghamton tells him that all of the crew is restricted to their base until they can build an airstrip on their island. Seven guys-plus McHale-using hand tools, are to build an airstip.
We quickly learn this is just a ploy to keep them away from a 5-time Oscar-winning director, John Burton, who is coming to make a documentary about PT boats for the Navy. Binghamton is eager to become a movie star and, of course, doesn't want McHale and his "pirates" anywhere near Mr. Burton. Binghamton even plants a fake mustache on himself to make himself look older, thinking he looks too young to be a captain.
Alas for the captain. McHale learns about the visit and he and his men orchestrate a fake air raid, with their boat sailing into the harbor pretending to be fighting off the enemy. Burton understands it was a fake raid, but he likes what he saw and tells Binghamton he wants his film to star McHale & Co.
The gang is eager to be in the picture...until Burton awakens them before dawn and begins an all day shooting session that requires so many retakes of them racing out from their huts to board their boat that they are totally exhausted. Burton even fires live ammo just over their heads-putting holes in Parker's helmet-for realism. He and his one-man crew-the cameraman-work the men hard all day, but they finally get all the scenes they need by late afternoon. Burton takes off on a fishing trip, with plans to screen what he has filmed for Admiral Rogers the next evening.
Then our heroes find Fuji in an American uniform in the hut and he explains that he snuck into the last few scenes of the movie. McHale blows his lid knowing that when the picture is displayed on a large screen, Fuji will be clearly visible, and he figures they'll all wind up in prison.
So the crew is going to spend the one day they have to re-film all that was in their final scenes without Fuji, who will now be the cameraman. They figure to quickly switch their film with the professional reels and leave the rest of the project alone. Filming apparently went so smoothly there were no glitches at all-which you would think to be amazing, giving that they are rank amateurs at making movies. We see none of their filming sessions. But when they go into the hut to switch the film, the make the blunder of allowing Mr. Parker to be with them.
Of course, almost as soon as Chuck picks up a reel, he drops it, it rolls across the floor, and he picks it up in a tangle equal of any string of Christmas lights in any Christmas comedy movie. Just to make sure it's a disaster, he drops the film into a big vat of acid, ruining it all.
Well, the guys, off camera, put things together the best they can and deliver them to the screening room where Mr. Burton and Admiral Rogers and the others are waiting. We all view the film and it is a mis-mash of mixed-up scenes, repeated scenes, some scenes run backwards and forwards and backwards again, sometimes in slow motion. We see the men marching in formation, except for Mr. Parker who goes the wrong way, reverses, then almost gets trampled running back to them. We see the crew members mugging for the camera. We see what would appear to be a Japanese Zero being shot down-except it finishes with a model plane dropping into a tub of water and being picked up by Gruber who holds it up posing for the camera. All sorts of total silliness.
If you know how so many of the plots in this series work out, you can figure out what happens here. For those who don't know, I'll leave that to your guesswork.
I have a few problems with this script. We are told Burton is to make a "documentary" which means filming the boys as they actually go about their duties, not rehearsing them to do scripted scenes that look like they are fighting the enemy. Burton is a big-time director, but he has only one helper to make his whole movie? And once they've done the filming, his helper develops the film and neither of them do anything to put it together, or take out scenes they don't like? They don't even view what they have, they're happy to see it for the first time with the admiral the next night? You would think Burton would, at the very least, want to view what they have filmed and directed his man to cut out a few things, even if not do more to make a finished product.
There's no way McHale's crew could have spliced together the film they had to come up with all of the slow motion and reverse scenes that we viewed. As shown, all Parker did was clumsily spoil one reel of film, we are told the one with Fuji. He didn't destroy the other reels, yet somehow everything go jumbled up.
The whole episode was really a set-up to get us to see the hokey film with all the mixed up scenes. They were amusing of sorts, but not all that amusing. Frankly, Burton and his aid were filming a total of 8 men-McHale, Parker and six sailors. The addition of Fuji would certainly have been spotted by Burton, his aid, or both almost as soon as they entered the scene.
Just seemed like a less-than-average episode with all the illogical, impossible actions, so I give it a 5.
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