The Lady Takes a Sailor

I'm surprised at the rating and the reviews. I found this very amusing and charming. The romance was the highlight but the comedy wasn't bad at all. I will definitely be watching it again.

Okay, it's forgettable fluff but Curtiz at least gives it some pep. Best of the whole magilla is Max Steiner's score. Worst of all is Robert Douglas. What in heaven's name was Warners thinking by casting him in a knockabout farce. He just sinks the whole ship. They were trying to build him up (he played another incongruous role in THE DECISION OF CHRISTOPHER BLAKE) but this was a misstep. He faired MUCH better in ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN and THE FOUNTAINHEAD. They really needed a blowhard comedian (Raymond Walburn, Thurston Hall). Come to think of it, studio regular Sydney Greenstreet would have been perfect. Hmmm... I wonder if Douglas was a substitute. Watson - The Memmos!!

The David Butler unit was doing much better comedies at Warners during this period. But, still, it's worth one look (and listen).

"The Lady Takes a Sailor" from 1949 is a pleasant comedy, but given the cast of Jane Wyman, Dennis Morgan, Eve Arden, and Allyn Joslyn, directed by Michael Curtiz, no less, one expects more.

Jane Wyman as a blonde was vivacious and really popped in the '30s, often as the best friend; once her hair was brunette, she scored as a dramatic actress. She had a terrific singing voice and often chose to do musicals. And like all stars, some of her films were ordinary. This is one of them.

Here Wyman is about 32 (her birth year is given as 1914 or 1917 but actresses often shaved a few years off when they started as a chorus girl, as she did, in which case they were often underage and gave an earlier birth year. It seems that 1917 is correct. Glamorous and attractive, she plays a consumer protection expert, kind of like a walking Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

During a restful day on her boat, it capsizes and she is picked up by Dennis Morgan, who is on a submarine working on a secret scientific mission for the government. Since the info is secret, when she tells her story, no one believes her and her reputation quickly starts going down the drain. In fact, William Frawley of Fred Mertz fame has a funny scene as the rep of The Liar's Club, who wants to give her an award.

The one thing that will prove her story is some photos she took, but the film has been taken from her camera. She launches a mission to steal the film.

The photography in this film is wonderful, but the script falls flat. It's not an ordinary type of film for Curtiz, and he didn't have a strong enough script. Everyone is good, but Dennis Morgan seems like a big jerk most of the time - again, poor writing.

Pretty ordinary fare.

The concept for this romantic comedy is kind of interesting: consumer-protection-expert Jane Wyman gets picked up by submariner Dennis Morgan on a secret mission and finds herself discredited by government misinformation. Wyman and Morgan are charming, ably supported by Allyn Joslyn, Robert Douglas and Eve Arden as comic foils. William Frawley has an amusing bit as the representative of the Liar's Club. Michael Curtiz' direction is efficient, the Max Steiner score is effective and excellent, the production is beautiful and beautifully photographed. Jane Wyman, in particular, is made to look especially glamorous and gorgeous; Eve Arden also looks exceptionally beautiful. These positive elements, however, are torpedoed by a tedious, unfunny script. Maybe the movie could have been better if the secret-mission concept had been more thoughtfully worked out or if the core of the picture had been slightly more "true" to better propel the farce; as it is, the various story elements feel arbitrary and disconnected. For instance, Jane Wyman plays a consumer protection expert, but her expertise has nothing whatsoever to do with the story; the story centers on her fight to regain her ruined reputation. The story is clearly intended to be farcical; why not have Wyman use clever inventions from her business (amusingly presented in the first scene) to fight Dennis Morgan instead of the boring, imagination-free ruses she employs? Morgan, meanwhile, comes off as a womanizing liar for much of the film; is he a hero, or just a jerk? It's difficult to decide. Comedy characters are often idiots, by design, but you need to feel sympathy for them as well; these characters were just off-putting. Between the script problems, and the poorly-motivated slapstick comedy, this movie falls flat. As a rule, I adore fluffy comedies, but this one made me squirm in my seat, thankful at my release once it had ground its way to a conclusion. If you're a fan of any of the principal players or makers, as I am, the film is worth seeing because it has some bright performances (particularly by Eve Arden), clever scoring, and attractive photography. If you're into fashions of the postwar era, this film has some wonderful clothes and hair. For most people, I would say, do yourself a favor and skip this misfire of a film. It's not good enough to be worth your time, nor is it bad enough to be fun. It's just beautiful and kind of annoying, a change-of-pace experiment for Michael Curtiz that doesn't really work. For Completists only.

Wyman is fine and Arden does her usual duty, but the rest is an awful mess. The main flaw is very weak plot is all over the place. First we're in Wyman's potentially interesting workplace that, after a big setup, we'll never see again. Then we have the ridiculously stupid underwater tractor where our two leads meet. After that we just have dumb slapstick and unwitty dialogue. The pacing is terrible, nothing makes sense, and there's little chemistry with the love angle. Give it a miss.