Seven Days Ashore

Miriam LaVelle makes this movie worth pursuing.

This movie like many others in this time does not have much of a plot. It's more of a variety show loosely connected to an insignificant and irrelevant plot. There's a lot of good entertainment here but the "rare to see" Miriam LaVelle puts on two performances that are worth your time regardless of what you think of the rest of the movie. You will find her dancing act at 36 mins and 1Hour and 11 minutes in the film.

Miriam LaVelle combines tap dancing with acrobatics. A technique that she developed as a teenager and has never been duplicated.

She was in a few other films, she primarily performed live on Broadway. The rest of the movie is certainly enjoyable and worth watching, but despite her almost complete lack of billing in most of the posters and other media prepared for the film, she is the star in my opinion.

Merchant Marine Dan Arland is returning for a seven days shore leave in San Francisco. Only he has been dating three girls. Carol Dean (Virginia Mayo) and Lucy Banning (Amelita Ward) both play in the same band while Annabelle Rogers is his actual girlfriend. He recruits his shipmates, Monty Stephens (Wally Brown) and Orval Martin (Alan Carney), to distract the band girls.

The Dan Arland side of the story is not that compelling. I don't know what's so interesting about him. The musical part is mostly romantic or jazzy or random big band with some dancing. As for Brown & Carney, their comedy is not really my speed. There is some value there for the old audience. I'm just not into it. I do like Marcy McGuire and her bits of comedy. It's not big laughs but she makes me smile. From her start with the bad dancing giant, she is kind of endearing. It is all a bit of a mishmash like somebody is throwing everything into the mix. I don't even get the letters idea.

RKO cobbled together their contract players and also some other movie sets to come out with this musical comedy. The players were known at that time, but they weren't top tier talent. What came out was a movie, perhaps a second feature, which helped pass the time but was hardly a work of art.

My main interest in this film was Wally Brown and Alan Carney. I found a previous comedy of theirs, "Rookies in Burma", hilarious when it was first released, but I was only about six years old. "Zombies on Broadway" still holds up as funny.. They're not very funny in "Seven Days Ashore"; they try a few shtick, borrowing other comedians style, but their routines fall flat. The music and dancing show a lot of energy-Marcy McGuire tries so hard that you that you wonder if the studio is violating some labor laws-but the result is ho- hum.

Two gorgeous secondary players, Virginia Mayo and Amelita Ward do a credible job in their share of comic bits. This was an early Virginia Mayo picture and she went on to stardom. Amelita Ward married Leo Gorcey, who didn't want her to work, and her career ebbed away. This trivia might interest fellow movie history nerds.

I assume this B picture used some of the sets from the previous RKO opus "Seven Days Leave", which starred Victor Mature and Lucille Ball. Both films feature the talents of Marcy McGuire. The music from "Seven Days Leave" is used as background music for "Seven Days Ashore".

The comedy team of Wally Brown and Alan Carney is topped billed, but they are really supporting players. The film's story is centered on the amorous adventures of Gordon Oliver and Elaine Shepard. Brown and Carney play Oliver's buddies. This is one of the few times in their cinema careers when Brown and Carney did not play Jerry and Mike. Obviously, the script was not written with them in mind. There just isn't much comedy here; Brown and Carney don't even get to do a patter routine! Marcy McGuire has a few good musical numbers, but not one number is given to Brown and Carney. Marcy has almost no interaction with the comics. Carney and Marcy would have made a very funny pair. Freddie Slack is on hand and plays the piano. The biggest surprise of the film and the best laughs are supplied by Margaret Dumont (of Marx Brothers' fame), who plays a terrible opera singer. However, she does not have any interplay with Brown and Carney.

If you enjoy wartime musicals, "Seven Days Leave" is not bad, but for those looking for some good slapstick, you are better off with "Girl Rush" or "Zombies on Broadway".