You're in the Navy Now

Today,13 June 2007, was my first viewing of the movie and I was really excited since I never knew that it had been made. The PC476 was in the Pacific from Guadalcanal to Australia to New Guinea to Leyte in the Philippines. I was Signalman 3rd Class and worked on top with the signal lamps. Our PC had two GM 1600HP diesel engines and we also had equipment to desalinate water which just barely sufficient to meet our daily needs except for showers. I spent two years aboard from Oct 1943 to Oct 1945. I really enjoyed the movie and it did capture the essence of the required intimacy of the 60 enlisted and 5 officer crew on a vehicle 173 feet long and 21 feet wide at the beam.

This film might just take you by surprise. After all, in so many films Gary Cooper plays the bigger than life hero. And, in so many WWII films (especially those made during the war), the story is about bigger than life heroes. Well, as a nice change of pace, Cooper plays a woefully unprepared and not especially heroic guy in this war film set during WWII--but made a few years later.

The film begins with Cooper receiving his first command of a naval ship. This seems weird to him, as he's only a reserve officer and has zero experience with ships. To make things a LOT worse, it turns out just about everyone on his new ship has no experience either! Heck, they aren't even sure how to take the ship out of port--it's that bad. To make things even worse, the Navy is testing out a new engine--and they've installed it on this ship! They can't help but fail and the film consists of one problem after another trying to get this ship to sea. Overall, an interesting film that actually was pretty entertaining and mildly funny--and I liked that it didn't try hard for jokes but took a more casual approach. It also helped that Cooper had some nice support--with Eddie Arnold, Jack Webb, Millard Mitchell, Ray Collins and many other veteran supporting actors. And, interestingly, the film was a first for three soon to be big names--Lee Marvin, Charley Buchinsky (Charles Bronson) and Jack Warden. Well worth seeing and undemanding fun.

It's noted in the Citadel Film Series book, the Films Of Gary Cooper that You're In The Navy Now was his first film for 20th Century Fox. It did fail to mention that this was the sixth of seven films that Cooper made with director Henry Hathaway. This was the only one of those seven that could be classified as a comedy.

Lieutenant Gary Cooper has just been activated from reserve status due to the war that broke out after Pearl Harbor. The Navy give him one interesting first command at sea. The Navy is experimenting with steam power as an alternative to diesel on the theory that there is in fact an infinite supply of water and oil might become scarce.

So Cooper gets an assignment on an experimental steam power PT Boat and he's to test it to see if it's feasible. But what the Navy also does is give him an entirely green crew of both officers and enlisted men. The only exception is boatswain Millard Mitchell.

This is quite a recipe for disaster and the laughs that would accompany those disasters. But Cooper and his crew prove surprisingly resilient in overcoming obstacles.

It's ironic that a film about a green crew for a Naval ship should also prove to be the debut film of several noted players as well. Lee Marvin, Harvey Lembeck, Charles Bronson, and Jack Warden all made their feature film debuts in You're In The Navy Now as sailors on the USS Teakettle as the men call their steam powered vessel.

With all the problems he has Coop is lucky enough to have married Jane Greer who is also in the WAVES and working as a secretary for one of the port big shots in John McIntire. She's provides the usual wifely support and has his back when things go wrong on the Teakettle as they inevitably do.

You're In The Navy Now is far from one of Cooper's major films nor is it the best of his collaborations with Henry Hathaway. But it's a pleasant enough comedy about a shakedown cruise which was also a shakedown film for a lot of debuting players.

Never intended to be side-splittingly hilarious, 'You're In The Navy Now' is an earnest effort at showing the lighter side of naval service, broadly in the manner of the 'Readers' Digest' feature "Humor In Uniform," and as such it works though modern audiences often think it dated and unamusing. Poor modern audiences, indeed.

Solid cast here, with Gary Cooper shipshape as the green but earnest new skipper of a submarine chaser in which an experimental propulsion plant has been installed for testing; Jack Webb, Eddie Albert, Harry Von Zell, Jane Greer, Harvey Lembeck, Jack Warden, Charles Buchinski - later to become Charles Bronson, and Lee Marvin all working, and sometimes conniving, together to make their oddly-engined ship a proud one.

The actual PC1168 used in the film can be seen here: http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/011168.htm 'You're In The Navy Now' is a pleasant way to voyage through an evening.

Gary Cooper stars in this WWII comedy, released several years after the wars' finish, about the various experiments that the Navy conducted with machines and equipment. Cooper plays John W. Harkness, a Reserve officer assigned to commandeer a ship that's been outfitted with a steam engine. He's basically as inexperienced as his misfit crew, and dealing with them occupies practically as much time as trying to make their infernal steam engine work.

Likeable and lively, "You're in the Navy Now" was scripted by Richard Murphy, based on a New Yorker article by John W. Hazard, and directed by Henry Hathaway. While it may never be truly uproarious, it generates enough modest chuckles to keep it watchable. The "misfits make good" formula has been a part of cinema for a long, long time, and here it makes for a decent story, as we come to respect and admire these men when they learn how to work together, and keep that engine running. A subplot about beefy sailor Wascylewski (Charles Bronson) selected to represent the ship in a boxing match also takes up some of the running time.

Cooper gets to do something a little different here, in contrast to the more accomplished heroes he'd played before. Here he is rather overwhelmed, and plays it just right. The lovely Jane Greer gets a handful of scenes as his supportive wife, but what is most impressive is the roster of actors filling out roles: Jack Webb, John McIntire, Ray Collins, Millard Mitchell, Eddie Albert, Richard Erdman, Harvey Lembeck, Ed Begley, etc. Real-life WWII veterans Bronson, Lee Marvin (in a bit part as a radio man), and Jack Warden made their film debuts here, along with Lembeck.

Filmed with full military cooperation, the film does have the feel of authenticity, and moves along well to an amusing climax with a LOT of near misses.

Seven out of 10.