Shipmates o' Mine

Stodgy drama with some weak comic moments. John Garrick is a naval captain who considers himself a failure after the ship he abandoned fails to sink (a cardinal sin, apparently). The story lacks direction much of the time, and the musical interludes provided by a number of forgettable songs and singers are irritating.

This film is billed as a musical but I would describe it as a drama interspersed with snatches of song and a musical finale tacked on at the end. Mike Dooley the Irish crewmember gives us two Irish songs in authentic fashion and there are a couple of nautical songs and a well known comic song sung by one of the farmers. The finale consists of a lady (presumably Polly Ward) singing and dancing with the Sherman Fisher Girls, a reprise of one of the nautical songs by a male chorus and then the highlight of the whole film a rendering of the title song by a splendid bass who even surpasses Peter Dawson's version. This film is reasonably entertaining as long as you do not expect fully realised musical numbers. The screenplay is good and Wallace Lupino has a couple of comic turns. (Although the print has been digitally remastered the sound is crackly in places and you need to listen carefully to catch the dialogue). The opening shots of ships in the First World War seem to be stock footage with shots of the officers on the bridge done in the studio.when the ships collide,however, no expense is incurred as it conveniently happens in fog so we never see either ship and the scenes of abandoning ship are obviously all done in the studio. The cast list includes someone called just "Navarre" but does not specify which character they play. Curiously an actor by the same name played Marlena's showhorse in Water for the Elephants in 2011.

As the other reviewers have already observed, contrary to Denis Gifford's description of it in 'The British Film Catalogue' as a musical this is more a very poor man's 'Cavalcade' (with a smattering of 'Lord Jim' thrown in), spanning twenty years, during the course of which someone very occasionally bursts into song; at one point in a bar in Queensland.

Plainly shot on a shoestring, it resembles a short that somehow clocked in at feature length, Oswald Mitchell's succession of stiffly directed scenes of people talking enhanced by Robert Martin's pleasing photography.

As others have said, this is a drama with songs. I loved it personally, an old fashioned heartwarming yarn that I thoroughly enjoyed. An interesting period piece, cheaply made of course, but very good of its type. The version I watched, on Talking Pictures TV, looked a bit washed out but perfectly watchable, and the sound was good.

I'd love to know more about the actors and performers, as I recognised very few of them. One of the things these old films offer - a chance to do some research and look out for other films by the same director, and look out for the actors and performers in other films too.