Voici la marine !

Metal worker James Cagney is humiliated by naval officer Pat O'Brien. So he joins the Navy to get even with him. Naturally. Then he falls in love with Pat's sister, only he doesn't know it's Pat's sister. Their romance may be short-lived, however, because Jimmy and Pat can't stand one another.

Cagney and O'Brien made a lot of these types of movies. This was the first and one of the best. Usually Jimmy's the cocky jerk and Pat's the nice guy. That's sort of the case here, too, but I actually found myself liking Cagney more than O'Brien. He's fun and likable, even if he's not always right. Pat, on the other hand, is a sour puss throughout the movie. Gloria Stuart plays O'Brien's sister who Cagney falls in love with. She's very pretty and does a fine job in a part that requires very little. Historically important for being partially filmed on board the USS Arizona, which was destroyed at Pearl Harbor seven years later. Also some footage of the dirigible USS Macon, which crashed the year after this film was released. It's a fun movie that fans of the stars will certainly enjoy. The climax is implausible but exciting. There is a blackface gag that will set some today back on their heels, so be prepared for that.

With the birth of the production code, the fun pre-code frolics of Cagney and Joan Blondell were at an end. Thus Warner Brothers came up with a new dynamic screen team - James Cagney and Pat O'Brien. This is the first of the films they did together. Prior to the production code, O'Brien often played the same kind of roles that Cagney played - the fast-talking smart guy with big ideas and a big dose of attitude. Since you can't have two of these in the same picture, O'Brien was generally promoted to being the more traditionally respectable of the two in their films together, and such is the case here.

The film starts with construction worker Chesty O'Conner (James Cagney) and naval officer Biff Martin (Pat O'Brien) trading at first verbal barbs and then punches. Chesty gets fired from his job because of the time he takes off recovering from the fight, and decides to go another round with Biff. Unfortunately, Biff's ship has put out to sea, so Chesty thinks the solution is to join the navy and get assigned to Biff's ship. He actually does wind up on Biff's ship, but soon learns he can't take to punching out officers whenever the mood strikes him. To complicate matters, Chesty takes a shine to Biff's sister, Dorothy (Gloria Stuart), and this just inflames matters more as Biff wants his sister to have nothing to do with Chesty. Warner contract player Frank McHugh provides the comic relief as Droopy Mullins, Chesty's stalwart friend and shipmate.

The film works better than most made right after the production code, primarily because the teaming of Cagney and O'Brien worked so well. By turning down the volume a bit on O'Brien's screen sauciness and turning up the volume on Cagney's, the two play off of each other's dynamism perfectly. This film is also interesting for historical reasons - it was filmed on and around the U.S.S. Arizona, one of the ships that sank at Pearl Harbor seven years after this film was made.

Here Comes the Navy is a key film in the history of cinema. As it marks the first teaming of James Cagney and Pat O'Brien, that in itself is historic. For these two in my humble opinion are the inventors of the male buddy film. The only other rivals for that distinction are Edmund Lowe and Victor McLaglen when they did a series of films as Captain Flagg and Sergeant Quirt. Cagney and O'Brien were teamed for seven years by Warner Brothers in various parts.

This also is James Cagney's first film in any of our Armed Services. He's the usual fresh mouthed Cagney who as a civilian runs afoul of CPO Pat O'Brien over a woman played by Dorothy Tree. Then Cagney joins the Navy and there's O'Brien waiting for him. And O'Brien has a sister, Gloria Stuart who Cagney falls for.

But of course when Warner Brothers had the good idea of shooting this movie at the San Diego Naval Station, they had no idea that they would be shooting on what became a national shrine. In fact it's mentioned several times that both O'Brien and Cagney are assigned to the battleship, U.S.S. Arizona. Shortly after this film was made the Arizona and the rest of the Pacific Fleet moved to Honolulu and on December 7, 1941 the Arizona became a part of history. A whole lot of the crew of the Arizona served as extras in Here Comes the Navy, so a lot of the faces you see are probably at the bottom of Pearl Harbor in the Arizona.

Knowing that I find it incredible that Here Comes the Navy has never made it to VHS or DVD. Hopefully that will be rectified soon.

Here Comes the Navy (1934)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Standard action from Warner about a cocky loudmouth (James Cagney) who joins the Navy so that he can get even with a Captain (Pat O'Brien) but Cagney ends up falling in love with his sister (Gloria Stuart). This film starts off with a great bang but as the movie goes along things become quite predictable and rather flat. The first part of the movie is great with a lot of fighting and insults being thrown by Cagney. Needless to say Cagney is very energetic and delivers another fine performance. His relationship with Stuart is also handled very well as the two actors have a lot of chemistry together. O'Brien is in good form as well and he and Cagney do their magic unlike any other duo. The biggest problem comes in the middle where the story pretty much gets weighted down by the familiar bit where the cocky Cagney must learn what it means to be a normal human being and shut his mouth up before it gets him in real trouble. The action scene at the end is very nice as is the funny ending. The most shocking scene comes when Cagney sneaks off the boat in blackface.

Besides James Cagney and Pat O'Brien, there's also beautiful Gloria Stuart (63 years before her triumphant return to the screen in Titanic (1997)) as the love interest, and Frank McHugh providing comedy centered around his mother's false teeth. In a fight over a girl with Navy man O'Brien, Cagney is knocked out when his girl distracts him. And when O'Brien later steals his girl, Cagney is so angry he joins the Navy with the hope of getting even. Talk about holding grudges! After 3 months of basic training (shot on location at the Naval Training Station in San Diego, California), Cagney is assigned to the battleship U.S.S. Arizona, the ship O'Brien is on. The Navy allowed location shooting on the actual ship, which is the same one sunk at Pearl Harbor and is now in the harbor as a memorial. It's an impressive ship with unbelievable firepower and we see the big guns being loaded and fired in maneuvers. Meanwhile, Cagney had met and wooed Stuart, but she turned out to be O'Brien's sister! And O'Brien caused a rift, another reason for Cagney to get even with him. Because of a bad attitude problem, Cagney eventually is transferred to the dirigible U.S.S. Macon at Sunnyvale, California. Again, the actual airship is used and it is an awesome sight as it is pulled out of its hangar, dwarfing everything in view. As luck (and the script) would have it, the ship tries to land in windy weather but aborts, with O'Brien hanging on to a mooring line as it gains altitude. Cagney disobeys orders and climbs down the rope with a parachute to try to save the man he doesn't yet know is O'Brien.