McHale's Navy (TV Series) Giuseppe McHale (1965) User Reviews

McHale's cousin comes to see his kin.

[kfo9494 · 8/10 · 19 November 2014]

Christy has been arrested by Binghamton and is housed in the local Navy brig. The crew is trying to figure a way to spring Christy when McHale intervenes and says he will go talk with Colonel Harrigan about the incident. The problem will be that McHale is restricted to base and leaving could get him in trouble with Binghamton. But he goes hoping to get Christy off on the charges.

With McHale gone, one of his cousins comes by looking for McHale. The cousin looks so much like McHale that the two could nearly be identical twins. When Binghamton comes looking for the AWOL McHale, the crew will let his cousin stand in for him and hopefully get Mchale off from a possible court-martial. But it will not be easy since the cousin can speak no English and the Captain can speak no Italian.

Most script that stoop so low as to make one of the regular cast members play two parts are very weak offerings. But, for some reason, this episode was not too bad. Maybe it was the language barrier but this episode was actually interesting. There is a lot of good play involving Binghamton which only enhances the entertainment value of the show. From what I thought was going to be a weak show, this turned into an enjoyable watch.

A ridiculous attempt at impersonating McHale

[FlushingCaps · 4/10 · 29 November 2020]

This one had some good moments but relied on two really hard-to-believe actions that kept it from getting a high score from me. They were the two main keys to the plot, not just lesser actions.

First, we get Captain Binghamton and Carpenter walking across the street when Carpy tells the captain to watch it, but Binghamton doesn't listen and almost walks right in front of a truck, driven by one of McHale's men, Christy. Because Binghamton got splashed when the truck hit a mudhole, and because it was one of McHale's men, he is, once again, going to press charges against Christy for trying to murder his captain. Sometimes it seems like almost every plot begins with the captain pressing court martial charges against one of McHale's crew, no matter how little reason there is to do so.

McHale decides to disobey Binghamton's restriction to base order, to go see Colonel Harrigan but the crew is amazed just a bit later to see that he is back-only out of uniform. What they find is actually McHale's cousin (played by Ernest Borgnine, of course) looking for his American cousin. Cousin Giuseppe speaks no English at all.

Shortly after they learn that it isn't the skip, here comes Binghamton, wanting to talk to McHale. They decide, that despite the fact that the man speaks and understands no English, they will have Giuseppe put on one of McHale's uniforms and try to impersonate the skipper.

Naturally, as soon as the captain tries to talk with him, he encounters an Italian-speaking man and when they tell him it's a form of battle fatigue, the captain can't wait to put him on a hospital ship-due that very day-to ship him back to the States.

Binghamton locks Giuseppe up in an upstairs room above his office. While Chuck is trying to keep Binghamton busy, Gruber & Co. sneak Giuseppe down via a rope made of sheets right past the captain's window.

McHale returns with the colonel, who is distressed when Binghamton acts like he has battle fatigue, insisting that McHale has been speaking only Italian all day, when Harrigan knows he's been with him.

I think a Giuseppe who spoke some English would have presented a much better script. As it was, he didn't really understand why they were dressing him in his cousin's uniform, and had no chance at communicating with anyone. It was idiotic to think he could fool the captain. How often did they ever see Binghamton visit McHale, talk to him, and not expect some sort of answer from him?

Frankly, it was stupid to tell the captain that their skipper had battle fatigue because they should have known that would give the captain an excuse for transferring him.

As I've said before, one stupid thing, followed by a plot that makes sense the rest of the way can still be a great show. If the only stupid thing was Christy facing a court martial because Binghamton almost walked into the path of his truck, this would have been fine.

But there was just no hope of passing off Giuseppe as McHale, forcing me to give this one a 4 out of 10.