No Time for Sergeants is a 1954 best-selling novel by Mac Hyman, which was adapted into a teleplay on The United States Steel Hour, a popular Broadway play and 1958 motion picture, as well as a 1964 television series. The book chronicles the misadventures of a country bumpkin named Will Stockdale who is drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II and assigned to the U.S. Army Air Forces. Hyman was in the Army Air Forces during World War II when it was part of the U.S. Army.
Adaptations in other media
Ira Levin adapted Hyman's novel for a one-hour teleplay that appeared as an episode on The United States Steel Hour television series in 1955. An expanded version appeared on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre later that year. In 1958, a film version was released.
Television adaptation (1955)
Ira Levin's adaptation of the novel appeared live on 15 March 1955 on The United States Steel Hour, a television anthology series. It starred Andy Griffith as Will Stockdale, Harry Clark as his nemesis and inadvertent mentor Sergeant Orville King, Robert Emhardt, Eddie Le Roy, and Alexander Clark. The kinescope recording of the broadcast is available.
Broadway play
An expanded version of the play, written by Ira Levin, opened on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre on October 20, 1955, produced by Maurice Evans and directed by Morton DaCosta. Griffith reprised his role, Myron McCormick played Sgt. King, Roddy McDowell played Will's army buddy Ben, and Don Knotts made his Broadway debut as Corporal Manual Dexterity. Scenic designer Peter Larkin won a Tony Award in 1956, and Andy Griffith was nominated for a Tony for Best Featured Actor. The play ran for a total of 796 performances, closing on September 14, 1957.
Motion picture
See No Time for Sergeants (1958 film)
No Time for Sergeants was filmed and released by Warner Bros. in 1958. The film was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starred Griffith, McCormick, Knotts, and most of the rest of the original Broadway cast. Warner Brothers contract stars Nick Adams as Stockdale's fellow draftee Benjamin B. Whitledge and Murray Hamilton as Irving S. Blanchard joined the cast.
Television series
No Time for Sergeants came to the small screen in Fall 1964. By this point, Griffith and Knotts were both established as stars of The Andy Griffith Show and were no longer available. The television series No Time for Sergeants starred Sammy Jackson who had had one line in the film version. When Jackson read that Warner Brothers was going to produce a television sitcom version of No Time for Sergeants, he wrote directly to Jack L. Warner, stating that he was the best choice for the role and asked Warner to watch a certain episode of the series Maverick as proof. Ten days later, Jackson was told to come to the studio to test for the role. Jackson won the role over several actors, including the better known Will Hutchins, a Warner Brothers Television contract star who formerly played the sympathetic Sugarfoot and had been in the No Time for Sergeants film.
Unlike Jim Nabors' Gomer Pyle (of the Andy Griffith Show spin off of the same name, inspired by No Time for Sergeants), Jackson's Stockdale was not unintelligent. He possessed a considerable amount of common sense gained from experience, which he frequently brought to bear during the run of the series.
His knowledge of farming leads him to give a better image interpretation analysis of an aerial photograph than Air Force Intelligence. The Air Force attempts to demonstrate the efficiency of its survival training by pitting an Air Force survival trained group against an untrained group including Stockdale in the wilderness. Stockdale, with his backwoods knowledge, takes charge and gives his party a comfortable time similar to being in a resort, while the trained group barely survives. Stockdale accepts latrine details as challenges rather than punishments and impresses the drill sergeant by how well he cleans the latrine. Stockdale demonstrates another more appealing quality over Gomer Pyle when he unflinchingly takes punches to his stomach from a karate expert with a smile and a good-natured lecture to his assailant until Stockdale ends his lecture by knocking the karate expert through a window. Stockdale has no reservations about drinking alcohol. However, the drill sergeant's attempts at getting him drunk fail, with the implication that Stockdale has built up a tolerance for alcohol from a lifetime of drinking moonshine whiskey.