Meet the Navy

This a filming of a wartime revue produced by the Canadian navy. Its' climax is the cast's performance at a royal command performance in London, England. The cast is made of up mostly amateurs, and their lack of experience shows in the acting. The musical numbers however hold up surprisingly well. There is one fantastic tap dancing sequence in a barber's shop and John Pratt's song "You'll Get Used To It" was a wartime hit. Although the film was made in England there are a few Hollywood names in the credits, which probably accounts for the technical gloss of the musical numbers. Most of the cast were never heard of again but John Pratt made an appearance in a few movies and had a successful career in Canadian politics. The movie still sometimes shows up on television, usually at some unearthly hour of the morning. Most surviving prints seem to be all black and white but in the original the final performance was in color.

Done with gusto on a shoestring. It's a backhanded compliment, but if I you chanced upon this without knowing it's provenance you'd take it for a minor Hollywood production (with Phyllis Hudson in the Nancy Walker role), with the musical numbers all shot as if on a proscenium.

This impression is reinforced by the lack of any recognisable British faces in the supporting cast (although leading man Lionel Murton later became one and ironically supported Cliff Richard in 'Summer Holiday'); except of course the Royal Family, seen arriving for the cartoonish Technicolor Command Performance finale (which includes 'Lydia the Tattooed Lady', immortalised a few years earlier by Groucho Marx in 'At the Circus').

(P.S. I wonder how many takes it took to get the cat outside the music store to examine the broken disc?)

The Royal Canadian Navy formed a concert party to entertain the matelots during World War 2 .This is a film recounting their exploits.The majority of the film shows scenes from their review although these are linked by a rather perfunctory love story.The musical numbers are of a reasonable standard but the acting,not surprisingly,is not.The only well known face is Lionel Murton who went on to a lengthy career as a character actor in the UK.It would appear that part of this film,probably the last reel,was shot in Technicolour but the copy I viewed was in black and white.The film was made in England after the war.