Navy Blues

As another review pointed out, shortly after this comic romp set among Navy enlisted men in Hawaii was made, things took a dramatic and deadly turn with the attack on Pearl Harbor. So that fact needs to be overlooked in order to enjoy this silly movie. (The scene in which an air attack is faked is particularly unfortunate).

All that aside, the main problem with this film is that it's basically one joke extended to an absurdly long running time of over 100 minutes. These types of slight comedies more typically ran around 80 minutes, and with good reason. Even though the running time is padded by the many musical numbers, the comedy routines are repetitive and I found myself wanting to start fast forwarding through them, never a good sign.

On the plus side, we have the always lovely and talented Ann Sheridan, who looks great doing a hula routine. She was an amazingly versatile performer of the type that we just don't see to have anymore. There are also some gifted comic actors (Jack Oakie, Jackie Haley, Martha Raye), though the script is so thin it feels like they are working overtime to be funny. A young, relatively slim Jackie Gleason has some good moments, but one of my favorites, Jack Carson, has a thankless straight man role.

My rating of 6 is based on the fact that I can watch Ann Sheridan in anything. (And this comes pretty close to being "anything.") Also, the historical interest of having a nostalgic snapshot of a more innocent time in history, just before the world changed forever.

This movie is a wonderful musical. In the 1930s Warner Brothers was the tops when it came to musicals with Busby Berkeley. In the 1940s, Warner Brothers was famous for their gangster, tough movies. But every now in then, Warner Brothers did a musical featuring Ann Sheridan most of the time. Ann Sheridan has a wonderful singing voice, she's up there with Alice Faye and Judy Garland, but today no one really acknowledge her singing. She does a great Hawaiian dance, she looks great dressed in Hawaiian customs. Martha Raye, I think has a special place in everyone heart, is a great comic, and sings some tunes with Ann Sheridan. There's no competition in this film, Ann Sheridan and Martha Raye holds their own and their great together. Together their two great comics, singers, and dancers. Two, forgotten greats of Hollywood. If you can see this movie, try to find it, you won't be sorry. I'm not=)

Before Pearl Harbor which occurred at the end of 1941 all the studios were doing more and more military oriented films as if to get America used to seeing our sons and occasional daughters in uniform. Navy Blues is far from blue, it's your typical service comedy with a cast of scene stealing players.

Any film with Jack Haley, Jack Oakie, Jack Carsonand Martha Raye ought to be given a look on general principles. The Haley and Oakie are a pair of connivers who beg, borrow, and steal a whole lot of money for bets to win the annual gunnery competition because they learn the gunner that's won it is transferring to their ship. But this is Herbert Anderson's last duty because his hitch is up before the contest.

What to do before they're killed by their shipmates is get Anderson some incentive. The only thing he's interested in is Ann Sheridan, who wouldn't be? So it's every wile and stratagem they can use including Sheridan's pal Martha Raye.

I can't forget the third Jack in this hand, that being Carson. He's playing Oakie and Haley's CPO whom they have to outwit on all occasions. All three Jacks settle nicely in roles were used to seeing them in.

Look fast there's a fourth Jack, Jackie Gleason. But he's hardly utilized at all. Arthur Schwartz and Johnny Mercer wrote some forgettable original songs, but the comedy is the real treat.

This had to be the only time Herbert Anderson gets the girl in a movie. This is a typical role for him, tall goofy guy. Later on he did serious parts in Battleground and Night Passage. Best known as Dennis The Menace's TV father.

With all the comic talent here you can't go wrong with Navy Blues.

This is a surprisingly breezy, and brassy, little musical about U.S. Navy sailors in Hawaii. The plot, as is often the case, isn't anything unusual, but the songs are catchy, Ann Sheridan looks great in a hula skirt (and sings and dances surprisingly well), Jack Haley and Jack Oakie make a hilarious team--they should have made more pictures together--and everybody looks like they're having a great time. Also keep your eye on a very young Jackie Gleason. Even though he doesn't have very much of a part, he still stands out and you can see that he was going to be going places. It's not one of the great musicals of all time, but is definitely worth a look.

A Warners musical that feels more like Paramount, with the Paramount contractee Martha Raye in a lead and a lightheartedness that one doesn't associate with Warners. And Jack Haley and Jack Oakie, as lovable-bumbling Navy men, try to get a Hope and Crosby rhythm going (their relationship is also very Dennis Morgan-Jack Carson, who did this sort of thing at Warners a few years later; Carson, meanwhile, is here as their exasperated commanding officer, taking lots of pratfalls and water-in-the-face takes). Ann Sheridan is around to be glamorous and sing, pleasantly, and Herbert Anderson is given something of a (failed) star buildup as her love interest. But the real stars are songwriters Arthur Schwartz and Johnny Mercer, who open the film with a ten-minute title song with yards of plot-exposition lyrics and follow it up with unusually funny, incisive, tuneful songcrafting. The plotting isn't up to much, and it's overlong, but the musical numbers are all keepers.