Thanks to his legendary TV portrayals of Andy Taylor and Ben Matlock, everyone associates Andy Griffith with the small screen, but movie buffs would be wise to make the effort to seek out the films he made before he became everyone’s favorite single dad/small-town sheriff. Chances are, you’re at least familiar with his dramatic debut in Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd (where his dark performance as TV host Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes is more frightening now than it was in 1957), but you’d do just as well to begin with the following year’s service comedy No Time for Sergeants.

A film adaptation of a play based on a book, No Time for Sergeants casts Griffith as Will Stockdale, a poor Georgia farm boy drafted into the Air Force. Like Forrest Gump after him, Stockdale has a knack for transcending his ignorance and the cynicism of those surrounding him, jumping serenely from situation to situation with a goofy smile on his face, while everyone else in his vicinity suffers for their sins. No one suffers more than his sergeant, Orville King (Myron McCormick in an Oscar-worthy comedic performance), whose longing for a nice, quiet life is constantly shattered by Stockdale’s innocent shenanigans.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because Griffith used the concept as the basis for his Mayberry spin-off Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., in which Jim Nabors’ mechanic character assumed the Stockdale role. Watching No Time for Sergeants, however, it’s clear that Griffith was better-suited to play the part.

The movie’s stage roots remain evident throughout, but this does little to lessen its enormous entertainment value. The talented cast (which includes Don Knotts in one scene that pairs him for the first time with his future TV partner) easily rises above some of the film’s more predictable set pieces, earning genuine laughs. —Allan Mott

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The first and last directorial effort of legendary TV producer Norman Lear (All in the Family), 1971’s Cold Turkey lacks the bite of Robert Altman’s Nashville or the verisimilitude of Michael Ritchie’s Smile, but it suggests Lear could have become as gifted a cinematic satirist as either, if he had wanted. Like the best comedies of the era, the movie mixes genuine laughs with incisive social commentary, much of which feels even more relevant now than it must have 40 years ago.

Dick Van Dyke stars as an ambitious reverend stuck in the dying town of Eagle Rock, Iowa. His only hope for escape is that the government might open a munitions plant in the area, but that’s dependent on the town significantly improving itself to deal with the influx of people such a project would bring. Desperate, he and the town’s mayor (Vincent Gardenia) jump at the offer dreamed up by Big Tobacco lobby ad man Bob Newhart to pay $25 million to any town that can convince its entire population to quit smoking for a whole month.

The locals are wary. The smokers are upset they’re the only ones asked to make a sacrifice, while the town’s right-wing coalition worries such a collective effort reeks of old-fashioned communism. Both groups eventually are persuaded by the reverend’s eloquence and — in the right-wingers’ case — the chance to form an authoritarian militia dedicated to keeping fellow citizens from lighting up. The town soon earns national media attention (as represented by the classic comedy duo Bob and Ray) and profits from the exposure, but at what cost?

Lear mines comedy gold out of his characters’ greed and uniquely American political views. As darkly absurdist as the climax may be, it seems like a mild stretch away from what actually would happen if this scenario played out in real life — his only real misstep being the inclusion of an actor in a truly terrible Richard Nixon mask in place of a fictionalized president. Beyond this, Cold Turkey is significant for featuring the first musical score composed by Randy Newman, whose beautifully cynical theme song, “He Gives Us All His Love,” sets the tone perfectly. —Allan Mott

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Do Not Disturb is a microbudgeted, all-hands-on-deck affair in which some actors dabble as directors and whatnot for an anthology film. Furthermore, the structure is experimental and even improvisational. They should not have bothered. Despite a fine concept — five stories set in Room 316 at a hotel — it’s one of the worst-executed films I’ve ever seen, making Four Rooms look like The Four Feathers by comparison.

First, a sad sack of a man (Harris Goldberg) hires an escort (Maureen Flannigan, Teenage Bonnie and Klepto Clyde) to read his eulogy while he lay in bed. Hysterical, no? No. Next, skeevy, flight-suited Eric Balfour (Skyline) meets his love, Lindsay Pulsipher (the girl in True Blood who looks like she’s 12), and it turns into nonsensical sci-fi with lizard tongues and marked impatience for the viewer.

During a student trip, a white gay guy has to room with a black straight guy. Nothing happens. I don’t mean sexually — I mean nothing happens. (At least the movie is consistent.) Finally, there’s a two-parter (seemingly to stretch the film to its big, bad feature length of 69 minutes) in which a guy thinks he’s going to get his rocks off, but instead gets his kidney stolen.

Wrapping this ball of bullshit from start to finish are interludes with Diva Zappa as a new maid. The actors really aren’t the problem — it’s all in the writing. Not a single joke is funny. Not a single story is interesting. Not a minute went by that I wished I were doing anything else but suffering through this. Do Not Disturb? Do not watch. —Rod Lott

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Herschell Gordon Lewis, aka the Godfather of Gore, has still got it! By “it,” of course, I mean goofy jokes, amateurish acting, not-much-better direction, loads of gross-out shots and generally dirt-cheap production values, but if it all adds up to pure entertainment, who cares? The Uh-Oh! Show is the end of that equation. I kinda loved it.

Only Lewis’ second film since 1972, The Uh-Oh! Show is a schizophrenic comedy centered around a demented game show of the same name, in which correct answers garner priceless prizes for its contestants, but also in which incorrect answers take limbs away from them, courtesy of one Radial Saw Rex, a large, African-American man who uses his electric tool like a phallus. The body part to go is chosen by a spin of the Wheel of Misfortune. No anesthetic is offered.

Producers want to bring the hit cable series to network prime time, but not without changes that greatly upset host Jackie (Brooke McCarter, Thrashin’). Meanwhile, a nosy reporter (Nevada Caldwell) wants to expose the show for the people-killin’ vehicle it truly is, and Uh-Oh! somehow morphs into a quasi-anthology that turns fairy tales into splatter stories.

Supplemented with boobs, boners and buckets of blood, The Uh-Oh! Show also comes packed with oodles of Lewis’ charm, evident from the start as he essentially hosts the film itself, sometimes commenting on how terrible it is. But his brand of terrible is different from other kinds of terrible, in that it translated to insanely watchable. I laughed a lot in its 88 minutes, all with it, as opposed to at it. Those with strong stomachs and an affection for his glory days of Blood Feast should do the same. —Rod Lott

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Legendary one-take helmer William Beaudine (Billy the Kid vs. Dracula) directed Bela Lugosi in Ghosts on the Loose, an alleged comedy starring The East Side Kids, who look to be almost 30. They’re kind of a gang of juvenile delinquents who sing and slap each other and fall down a lot, and are led by pint-sized Leo Gorcey and lanky Huntz Hall.

When Hall’s sister (Ava Gardner in an early role) gets married, The East Side Kids decide to fix her new house, yet they mistakenly enter the one next door that’s rumored to be haunted. It’s not — although the best scenes involve them thinking it is — but rather occupied by a group of Nazis in the cellar who print propaganda on “The New Order” (not the band) and are led by Lugosi.

Watch for when he sneezes and slips in a “Shit!” The loosely plotted Loose is filled with stoopid comedy (“I said sweep, not sleep! Now get to woik!”), to the point that it’s virtually laughless, but also utterly harmless. —Rod Lott

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