Number twenty-one has Slip, Sach and the other three joining the Army accidentally when they think the country comes under attack. Once there they battled with Sgt. Frisbie (Donald MacBride) as Louie (Bernard Gorcey) is called to Washington, D.C. as it turns out he was a WW1 hero who just happened to create a special bomb. Soon a couple spies are trying to kill Louie and it's up to the boys to try and keep him safe. I'm surprised it took so long for the studio to send the boys to the Army especially when you consider most comedy team do this at some point in their careers. Even by 1951 the "dumb recruits" battling the mean drill Sergent had already grown old and sadly this film doesn't add anything new or fresh. I think the biggest problem with the film is that they're working with an incredibly unoriginal story and there's not single attempt to do anything with it. We get so many forced situations that you can't help but sit there and feel as if you've seen it countless times before and done much better. The running gag here is that the boys keep doing dumb things and keep getting thrown into jail. This happens around four times. It wasn't funny the first time and it's certainly not funny any of the other times. I was really surprised at how unfunny many of the scenes where even if they weren't original. Usually the scene where the men try to follow all the instructions at least gets a few laughs but not here. The only saving grace happens early on when the boys don't like their outfits and try on some others, which just happen to belong to some Majors. The boys start going around not fully understanding why everyone is saluting them but of course they figure it out after it's too late. I think Hall comes off the best here as he's at least energetic and tries to keep things moving. Leo doesn't get to do much, which is shocking but even more so is the fact that he's not given any good dialogue to mix up. Daddy Gorcey comes off a little better and especially in the early scene where he tries to enlist. I think the stuff dealing with him missing the boys was quite touching in its own right. With that said, we've simply seen this type of film way too many times and this one here just isn't funny enough to bother with.