The Baby and the Battleship

A very good British cast of the day made this peacetime Navy picture. The comedy here is all situational, with wonderful humor. John Mills plays Puncher Roberts, who smuggles the Vespucci baby aboard their battleship waiting the return of his friend, Knocker White, played by Richard Attenborough. He would then give the baby to Knocker to take off the ship and return to his sister who had been dancing with Knocker when mayhem broke out and everyone scattered. Only Puncher wound up with an unattended baby. But Knocker doesn't make it to the ship in time, and it gets orders to pull out at night as part of a naval war games.

From then on, Puncher, joined by his friends in the rest of his squad, scurry around the ship to keep the baby hidden. They are one step ahead of being discovered, and some very good, warm-hearted humor unfolds as all these gobs get attached to junior.

Some extra things happen when a visiting marshal from another country comes aboard to observe. It has a good ending, and Attenborough has to sweat it out quite a bit on land when the uncles of the Italian family start pressing him to sure the baby is returned. One can't help thinking that Knocker gets what he deserved, and what could have been the hoosegow and worse for some guys turned out good for all.

A very funny scene is in the officers mess when a couple officers notice that a number of things seem to have suddenly gone missing. They sit down to eat and their napkin holders are empty. Below deck, the baby squad is fixing things for junior, for whom the dinner napkins prove to be just the right size and shape for diapers.

Roberts has one very funny scene when he sings a lullaby to the baby where they are holed up in the lock-up room. "I paid six pence to see, a tattooed Scotch lady." Read the rest of this under the Trivia section of the film on this IMDb page. The best line in the film is when Mills' Puncher Roberts says, "You know, I never feel safe when officers turn on the charm."

Mills and others give very good performances here. This isn't a great comedy or drama, but it is a light-hearted, fun film that the whole family might enjoy. It has some very good scenes of Royal Navy ships sailing and on maneuver at sea.

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.

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.

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).

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.