Will Stockdale is a backwoods rube from Georgia with super strength and a weak mind who is drafted into the United States Air Force. Other draftees being transported to basic training include dim Ben Whitledge and obnoxious bully Irving S. Blanchard. The unhappy Whitledge wants to be assigned to the infantry where his six brothers had served.
At boot camp, Stockdale, merely by being himself, proceeds to make life miserable for the man in charge, Master Sergeant Orville C. King, a career hack who likes his barracks to be routine, quiet and calm. In exasperation, the sergeant places Stockdale on full-time latrine duty. Stockdale believes his new position of "P.L.O." (Permanent Latrine Orderly) is a promotion. A company inspection takes a surprising turn when Stockdale's immaculately clean latrine impresses King's company commander. King gets into hot water, however, when Stockdale reveals that the sergeant kept him on permanent bathroom duty while neglecting to have the recruit complete all of the required military exams. The company commander orders King to help Stockdale through his training in one week, or else he will be demoted and made "P. L. O." himself.
Rushing him through testing, King bribes Stockdale by promising to give him his wristwatch if he can pass. Stockdale takes a manual dexterity test, a psychiatric test and an eye exam, managing to pass all despite driving all of the examiners crazy. He receives the wristwatch as a reward.
Blanchard convinces King to get Stockdale drunk so that he will fail the next day's inspection. Stockdale, with a tolerance to strong homemade moonshine, stays sober while King and Blanchard become drunk. They begin a barroom brawl with equally drunk infantrymen, but Stockdale leaves and returns to the base, avoiding the M.P.s. Blanchard is arrested and King is missing when the colonel and captain inspect the latrine and barracks the next day. Stockdale has mechanically rigged all of the toilet seats to open simultaneously in a "salute". A filthy King is found after he sneaks into the latrine and triggers the toilet lids. He is summarily reduced to the rank of private and sent to gunnery school with Stockdale and Whitledge. As King goes back to his office dejected, he admits to Stockdale that he has grown to like him. Stockdale gives the watch back to King.
At gunnery school, Stockdale is at the bottom of the class and Whitledge is next to the bottom. King graduates as the top man and is assigned to the staff of General Eugene Bush at his former rank. On their first flight, Stockdale and Whitledge fly to Denver in an obsolete B-25 bomber. Stockdale's assignment is tail gunner. After putting the plane on autopilot, the pilots fall asleep, and the airplane becomes lost at night over the atomic bomb test site at Yucca Flats, Nevada. The radio operator was left behind at the base, so Stockdale and Whitledge must radio to obtain their position. Military radiomen on the ground, confused by Stockdale's folksy, clownish speech, have the commander of the atomic bomb test rouse General Bush to confirm that Stockdale is not a prankster. Bush reassures Stockdale that he is not a foreign agent, as King tells Bush to remind Stockdale of the watch.
Following detonation of an atom bomb, a fire breaks out in the aft of the plane. Stockdale and Whitledge bail out and travel for days to get back to the base. They are declared dead by King, but the others on the plane survive and are to be decorated. During the air medal ceremony, Stockdale and Whitledge reappear, so the Air Force has to cover up the story to avoid an international public humiliation. Stockdale suggests that both he and Whitledge be transferred to the infantry. General Bush heartily approves and has King transferred with them.
^Cohn, Lawrence (October 15, 1990). "All-Time Film Rental Champs". Variety. p. M174.
^"Top Grossers of 1958". Variety. 7 January 1959. p. 48. Please note figures are for US and Canada only and are domestic rentals accruing to distributors as opposed to theatre gross
