The Baby and the Battleship

When your light airy comedy can boast Richard Attenborough and John Mills as its leads, well it's in safe hands as a time filler at least. The Baby And The Battleship is one of those affable comedies that filtered out of Shepperton Studios from time to time back in the day. Always crammed with stock British talent, they serve as a reminder, much like the Pinewood Studios comedies released in the same time frame, of simple honest enjoyment. No frills or attempts at insulting the viewers intelligence, they existed (exist) purely as a medium to be sampled without the need for dissection or deeper themed meanings (like some of Ealing's comedies for example).

This effort revolves around two sailors, Knocker (Attenborough) and Puncher (Mills), who while on shore leave find themselves baby minding the brother of Knocker's Italian fiancée, the 13th born in the family no less! After a big punch up in the city, Puncher wakes up to find everyone has gone except the baby, who is still sitting in the last place Puncher had left him. Fretting and unable to find Knocker 9who's off with his lady searching elsewhere), Puncher smuggles the baby on board his ship and promptly enlists his ship mates to help him. Cue much mirth as first the ship sails leaving Knocker AWOL on shore, and secondly as macho sailors try to temporarily raise the child whilst simultaneously keeping him hidden from the ship's superiors; something that proves most definitely hard to do.

As one can reasonably expect with a cast containing two of Great Britain's treasures, the acting is value for money. Backed up by a ships roll call consisting of Bryan Forbes, Michael Hordern, Michael Howard, Lionel Jeffries, John Le Mesurier and Gordon Jackson, it's easy to see why this comedy was steered safely into port. Also having some nice outer location work at Abattoir Wharf in Corradino, Malta, is a plus as well. The Baby And The Battleship probably isn't a film you would want to watch time and time again, but hey, sometimes once is enough to leave a safe and favourable impression. 6/10

This is one of the most adorable British comedies of the 50s and perhaps the only film even where the lead actually is a baby. A British frigate is on exercise in the Mediterranean and makes a landing at Naplës, where two of the marines, "Puncher" and "Knocker", John Mills and Richard Attenborough, have some adventures ashore, get involved in a tremendous fight, and Knocker has some old connections with a local family with thirteen children, the first twelve being all girls, while number 13 at last is a very much longed for boy. Due to random circumstances Puncher ends up with the baby in his hands, and waking up in the city all dead and deserted after the rows he has no alternative but to bring the child with him on board. There the baby has to be protected by any means from being discovered by the crew, and Puncher gets assistance from his fellow mates, who all join up caring for the clandestine baby. Of course there are any number of hilarious complications, especially when the ship is visited by the illustrious crew of another alien battleship. John Mills is wonderful as the main caretaker of the child, but the crisis brings out the best in all of them. The Italian family is tremendously upset because of the lost baby, and there are some awesome uncles there mobilised to protect the interests of the family. In brief, this is all sunshine and humanity and warm hearts all the way, and none comes to any harm. But the star winning everyone's heart is the adorable baby.

Based on a novel by Anthony Thorne. If you like the title you'll love the film; and enough people did in 1956 to handsomely repay British Lion splashing out colour & widescreen on this fey little trifle set against an imposing nautical backdrop.

The young Bryan Forbes presumably wrote most of his own lines for his role as the crew's other boy wonder if his additional dialogue credit is anything to go by. I hope he wasn't responsible for the 'Russian' spoken by visiting Marshal Andre Morell (while the baby supplied his own gurgles and howls). Five years later star Richard Attenbrough was putting up the money for the lad's directorial debut (Forbes', not the baby's).

My FTA usually puts on great old movies with regularity and I am always eager to watch because I don't see much these days that has any real depth to the story, so I usually chew it up eagerly. So, this afternoon, I was treated to "The Baby and the Battleship". The name put me off a bit, but I saw that the there was quite a stellar cast and decided to stick with it while lying on the lounge and eating a nice hot pork dumpling soup with some jasmine tea (sounds kinda snotty-nose doesn't it?)

Well....that's where it ended.

If you thought that you were getting class with John Mills and Richard Attenborough, forget it. They have done better things when visiting the toilet when they get up of a morning. The whole movie is a milquetoast presentation with a poor shot at Marx Bros. mayhem that misses by quite a bit. From start to finish, the whole plot is just an unbelievable potpourri of badly written comedy, stiff acting and rubbish lines in general. It doesn't surprise me that the movie was panned by critics back in the 50's. What did stand out was the editing of the movie. My wife and I sat and watched the movie thinking that the baby (quite mature) that was used would have been blubbering intensely at the end of most scenes, but I believe that, due to editing, the kid was made to look like a total actor that was in control of itself at all times, which is more than I could say for the grown-ups. The rest of the cast were made to look like badly written cartoons.

Do yourself a favor and give this one a miss. The big names in this movie have made better and this must have been just a quick money-maker while they were in between projects.

It may not seem like it, but I'm lost for words with this one.

The Baby and The Battleship is one of those movies that can be instantly forgotten about as soon as the end credits roll. It is an innocent film for an innocent audience - no blood, no gore, no violence, no profanity, no sex, no anything much. Still, it is worth a look, if only to spot some famous names in the days of their relative youth - Richard Attenborough, John Mills, John Le Mesurier, et.al. Not great nor terribly funny but it does have a few light-hearted moments that warm the heart.