Snuffy Smith (Bob Duncan) is a moonshining hillbilly from the Ozarks
who's always on the run from revenue agent Ed Cooper - which he eventually
grows tired of, so he tries to get himself enlisted in the army ... but
the army rejects him until he saves the life of General Rosewater
(J.Farrell MacDonald), who's almost run over by a motorbike - and thus,
Snuffy becomes a soldier after all. But much to his dismay, revenue agent
Ed Cooper was in the meantime enlisted as well, and is now his direct
superior. Still, that doesn't keep Snuffy from making a mess of his
soldier days, he continually sleeps on the job and doesn't shy away from
abusing the regiment's kitchen to produce his moonshine and let his fellow
soldiers have some of it - so much so that even General Rosewater sees no
other option than to have him dismissed.
Meanwhile, Snuffy's soldier friend Don (Jimmie Dodd) has invented a new
and vastly improved range view, which (this being World War II-time) a
couple of Fifth Columnists are more than interested in, and eventually
they even manage to steal the thing, but to smuggle it out of the army
camp, they hide it in Snuffy's backpack - and later have troubles getting
it back ...
At around the same time, General Rosewater is preparing his regiment
for a maneuvre taking place in - you guessed it - the Ozarks, and soon
enough he realizes how indispensable Snuffy would be as a scout since he
knows the area. Heck, he even goes so far as to make Snuffy Ed Coopers
superior, once he has laid his hands on him.
In the end of course, the Fifth Columnists are captured, Don's range
view is returned to him, and he can put it to good use in General
Rosewater's little wargames and help his blue team win against the white
team led by a rival General ...
So so army comedy with the then customary patriot message, relieing a
bit too much on hillbilly and backwoods humour to really work and
invariably going for the cheap joke. Then again, there are way worse
comedies around.
The film Hillbilly Blitzkrieg brought the comic strip character Snuffy
Smith back to the big screen later the same year.
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