Disc Reviews

Biloxi Blues Review

• 3rd Jun 2015

Biloxi Blues opens with a train travelling over a distinctive bridge over the Mississippi river (the film ends with the same shots but in reverse). Inside a raw recruit is apprehensive as he travels with other recruits on their way to their 10 week boot camp. It’s 1945 and the Second World War is in its closing months. At the training camp near Biloxi the soldiers are greeted by their drill sergeant, Sergeant Merwin J. Toomey, distinctively played by Christopher Walken. Sgt. Toomey puts the recruits through the usual paces as these 17-18 year olds grow up and mature in their new alien and tough environment.

If the film is imbued with some strong characterisations it will come as no surprise that the film was written by and based off a play and book by foremost Broadway playwright Neil Simon. Throughout the 1960s and 70s many of Simon’s plays became some of the great comedies of the period including Barefoot in the Park (1967), The Odd Couple (1968), Sweet Charity (1969), The Sunshine Boys (1975) and The Long Goodbye (1977), defining American sitcom cinema. This film though is even more personal as it was the second biographical play following Brighton Beach Memoirs that had been made into a film in 1986. Biloxi Blues is a direct sequel. Whereas BBM dealt with the teenage Simon’s adolescent youth growing up in post-Depression America, in Biloxi Blues while Simon’s alter-ego has the same name as the previous film, Eugene Morris Jerome he is played by a very fresh faced Matthew Broderick. There would be a further instalment following the growing up of Eugene Morris Jerome with the play Broadway Bound setting his character on track to becoming a Broadway writer (this was only made into a TV movie in 1992 which starred Corey Parker who had the central part as Epstein in Biloxi Blues).

Throughout the 1980s there was an abundance of films grouping mostly men as recruits including the serious dramas An Officer and a Gentleman (1980) and Taps (1981) to comedies such as Stripes (1981), but to this can also be added the Police Academy films with their much broader and vulgar comedy. What they all have in common though is a sense of camaraderie and the growing pains they experience in a tough environment as the characters literally grow from teenagers to men. Broderick’s Jerome is an observer recording events of those he grew attachments to as well as a participant. The boys lose their virginity together, find a collective enemy in the sergeant and learn to tolerate each other’s differences including homosexuality. What is palpably noticeable though is that there are no black or other ethnic troops, other than the Jewish ones, most clearly played out by Broderick’s character and especially the geeky, lonely and selflessly independent Epstein (Parker) who between them do face anti-Semitism.

Walken’s Sergeant Toomey is particularly strong and said rather than balling the men out he plays much more passively aggressive adding an extra element of the psychotic to his character rather than the way it had been played on the stage as a more shouty Toomey. On its release this film was a success, particularly in the US but has a new welcome release on DVD by Fabulous Films in conjunction with Freemantle Media Enterprises. While there are no other extras other than the usual trailer, chapter selection and language options the picture is fine. However, when played the aspect ratio while correct was framed by black edges on all four sides.

Chris Hick