YOUR MOTHER WEARS COMBAT BOOTS

US, 1989, 100 minutes, Colour.
Barbara Eden, Hector Elizondo, Conchata Ferrall.
Directed by Anson Williams.

Your Mother Wears Combat Boots is a comedy with Barbara Eden as a protective mother who goes into the Air Force to try to persuade her son to leave it. Naturally, she gets caught up in the training and eventually she and her son do parachute jumps. In the meantime, there is a great deal of sit-com comedy with the training, the heroine getting on with the other women in the force, and the clash with Sergeant Burke. Barbara Eden is at ease in this kind of comedy. Hector Elizondo is serious and severe as the sergeant. It is a kind of pale imitation of Private Benjamin and An Officer and A Gentleman.

1. Amusing comedy? In the Private Benjamin tradition?

2. The army combat training sequences, the use of real facilities? The telemovie sit-com style of the production?.

3. The title, the focus on the possessive mother, on the son? The differences between the two? The mother in training, her having to give up her protective attitude?

4. Brenda as the central character: strong-minded, aerobics training, wanting her son to go to college? Discovery that he had joined the Air Force? Her decision to go in, taking someone's name, her fashionable and casual style? Sergeant Burke and his attacking her, her having to do the chores and discipline? Friendship with the other women? Gradual change? Discussions with Jim? The final jump?

5. Jim and his decision, going into the airborne? His black friend? Meeting his mother? Her failure to jump, her letting go? His being able to jump?

6. Hector Elizondo and his severe style as the sergeant, disciplining Brenda, gradually appreciating her?

7. The women on the site? Edie and Carla? Background, jokes about tough women? Their friendship, covering for her, the jump? The secretary and her threats for killing sergeants and trainees? Army humour?

8. Sit-com situations, humour, American style?