
Former National Service Conscript - actor, Richard Wilson - takes a light hearted look at this taste of the army, experienced by so many young men after the war. 'Both Feet in the Army!' illustrates the trials and tribulations, the laughs and lunacies, of post-war National Service, through excerpts from sitcoms such as 'Get Some In' and from films such as 'Carry On Sergeant' and 'Privates Progress', to name just a few. During the peak years of the 1950s, over a quarter of a million youngsters were serving at home or abroad in any one year - and for the millions who spent two years of their youth in the Army, Navy or Air Force in peace time, the experience was unforgettable 'Both Feet in the Army!' captures those years for you.
(archive footage)

Former National Service Conscript - actor, Richard Wilson - takes a light hearted look at this taste of the army, experienced by so many young men after the war. 'Both Feet in the Army!' illustrates the trials and tribulations, the laughs and lunacies, of post-war National Service, through excerpts from sitcoms such as 'Get Some In' and from films such as 'Carry On Sergeant' and 'Privates Progress', to name just a few. During the peak years of the 1950s, over a quarter of a million youngsters were serving at home or abroad in any one year - and for the millions who spent two years of their youth in the Army, Navy or Air Force in peace time, the experience was unforgettable 'Both Feet in the Army!' captures those years for you.
2013-07-22
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6.4Sergeant Grimshawe wants to retire in the flush of success by winning the Star Squad prize with his very last platoon of newly called-up National Servicemen. But a motley bunch they turn out to be, and it's up to Grimshawe to put the no-hopers through their paces.
6.7Petty con artists Slicker Smith and Herbie Brown mistakenly join the Army evading the cops. The cop chasing them winds up as their drill instructor. A rich young man and his former working class chauffeur are not only in the same unit, they're vying for a pretty girl who seems attracted to both.
7.0Three World War II buddies promise to meet at a specified place and time 10 years after the war. They keep their word only to discover how far apart they've grown. But the reunion sparks memories of youthful dreams that haven't been fulfilled -- and slowly, the three men reevaluate their lives and try to find a way to renew their friendship.
6.8Battle of the Bulge, World War II, 1944. Lieutenant Costa, an infantry company officer who must establish artillery observation posts in a strategic area, has serious doubts about Captain Cooney's leadership ability.
6.6A mismatched collection of conscripted civilians find training tough under Lieutenant Jim Perry and Sergeant Ned Fletcher when they are called up to replace an infantry battalion that had suffered casualties at Dunkirk.
6.8In a rural town in Louisiana, a black Master Sergeant is found shot to death just outside the local Army Base. Military lawyer, Captain Davenport—also a black man—is sent from Washington to conduct an investigation. Facing an uncooperative chain of command and fearful black troops, Davenport must battle with deceit and prejudice in order to find out exactly who really did kill the Master Sergeant.
6.5Follow a group of children who are evacuated to a Yorkshire village during the Second World War, where they encounter a young soldier who, like them, is far away from home.
7.4General Candy, who's overseeing an English squad in 1943, is a veteran leader who doesn't have the respect of the men he's training and is considered out-of-touch with what's needed to win the war. But it wasn't always this way. Flashing back to his early career in the Boer War and World War I, we see a dashing young officer whose life has been shaped by three different women, and by a lasting friendship with a German soldier.
7.3A team of allied saboteurs are assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers.
7.0London, 1953. Mr. Williams, a veteran civil servant, is an important cog within the city's bureaucracy as it struggles to rebuild in the aftermath of World War II. Buried under paperwork at the office and lonely at home, his life has long felt empty and meaningless. Then a devastating medical diagnosis forces him to take stock, and to try and grasp some fulfilment before it passes permanently beyond reach.
7.3Georgia farm boy Will Stockdale is about to bust with pride. He’s been drafted. Will’s ready. But is Uncle Sam ready for Will?
6.8The lives of three young men, a German and two Americans, during WWII.
7.5North Africa, World War II. British soldiers on the brink of collapse push beyond endurance to struggle up a brutal incline. It's not a military objective. It's The Hill, a manmade instrument of torture, a tower of sand seared by a white-hot sun. And the troops' tormentors are not the enemy, but their own comrades-at-arms.
6.9A middle-aged man recalls his childhood growing up in and around London during World War II.
7.0The life story of a salt-of-the-earth Irish immigrant, who becomes an Army Noncommissioned Officer and spends his 50 year career at the United States Military Academy at West Point. This includes his job-related experiences as well as his family life and the relationships he develops with young cadets with whom he befriends. Based on the life of a real person.
6.0Laurel and Hardy join the army. They are hardly soldiers, but they believe their employer, (Dick Nelson) will need them now he's drafted.
6.5A Broadway choreographer gets drafted and coincidentally ends up in the same army base as the boyfriend of his object of affection.
6.2Can a girl from Little Rock find happiness with a mature French planter she got to know one enchanted evening away from the military hospital where she is a nurse? Or should she just wash that man out of her hair? Bloody Mary is the philosopher of the island and it's hard to believe she could be the mother of Liat who has captured the heart of Lt. Joseph Cable USMC. While waiting for action in the war in the South Pacific, sailors and nurses put on a musical comedy show. The war gets closer and the saga of Nellie Forbush and Emile de Becque becomes serious drama.
6.7Barney Greenwald, a skeptical lawyer, reluctantly defends an officer of the navy who took control of the Caine from its captain, Lt. Philip Francis Queeg, while caught in a violent sea storm. As the court-martial proceeds, however, Greenwald increasingly questions if it was truly a mutiny or rather the courageous acts of a group of sailors who could not trust their unstable leader.
6.5Bizarre tale of sex, betrayal, and perversion at a military post.