Navy Blues

Before Pearl Harbor which occurred at the end of 1941 all the studios were doing more and more military oriented films as if to get America used to seeing our sons and occasional daughters in uniform. Navy Blues is far from blue, it's your typical service comedy with a cast of scene stealing players.

Any film with Jack Haley, Jack Oakie, Jack Carsonand Martha Raye ought to be given a look on general principles. The Haley and Oakie are a pair of connivers who beg, borrow, and steal a whole lot of money for bets to win the annual gunnery competition because they learn the gunner that's won it is transferring to their ship. But this is Herbert Anderson's last duty because his hitch is up before the contest.

What to do before they're killed by their shipmates is get Anderson some incentive. The only thing he's interested in is Ann Sheridan, who wouldn't be? So it's every wile and stratagem they can use including Sheridan's pal Martha Raye.

I can't forget the third Jack in this hand, that being Carson. He's playing Oakie and Haley's CPO whom they have to outwit on all occasions. All three Jacks settle nicely in roles were used to seeing them in.

Look fast there's a fourth Jack, Jackie Gleason. But he's hardly utilized at all. Arthur Schwartz and Johnny Mercer wrote some forgettable original songs, but the comedy is the real treat.

This had to be the only time Herbert Anderson gets the girl in a movie. This is a typical role for him, tall goofy guy. Later on he did serious parts in Battleground and Night Passage. Best known as Dennis The Menace's TV father.

With all the comic talent here you can't go wrong with Navy Blues.

As another review pointed out, shortly after this comic romp set among Navy enlisted men in Hawaii was made, things took a dramatic and deadly turn with the attack on Pearl Harbor. So that fact needs to be overlooked in order to enjoy this silly movie. (The scene in which an air attack is faked is particularly unfortunate).

All that aside, the main problem with this film is that it's basically one joke extended to an absurdly long running time of over 100 minutes. These types of slight comedies more typically ran around 80 minutes, and with good reason. Even though the running time is padded by the many musical numbers, the comedy routines are repetitive and I found myself wanting to start fast forwarding through them, never a good sign.

On the plus side, we have the always lovely and talented Ann Sheridan, who looks great doing a hula routine. She was an amazingly versatile performer of the type that we just don't see to have anymore. There are also some gifted comic actors (Jack Oakie, Jackie Haley, Martha Raye), though the script is so thin it feels like they are working overtime to be funny. A young, relatively slim Jackie Gleason has some good moments, but one of my favorites, Jack Carson, has a thankless straight man role.

My rating of 6 is based on the fact that I can watch Ann Sheridan in anything. (And this comes pretty close to being "anything.") Also, the historical interest of having a nostalgic snapshot of a more innocent time in history, just before the world changed forever.

... and a reminder how everything can change in an instant. This movie is about two American sailors (Jack Oakie and Jack Haley) on shore leave in Honolulu who find out that another ship's master gunner is actually transferring to THEIR ship before the gunnery competition begins between the two ships, and nobody knows but the two goofball sailors and the sailor who is transferring. They are always on the losing end of any bets, so here they finally have a no lose situation. They borrow 200 dollars from one of their more financially savvy shipmates - and believe me the way these two goofballs throw around money that could be just about anybody - and place bets on their ship winning at 15:1 odds. They figure they will clean up so they pawn off the ship's trophies to get even more betting money, figuring everyone is on shore leave and nobody will notice or mind. After they win they will buy the trophies back before anyone knows they are missing. They can't lose - right? WRONG. The Midwestern corn-fed dead-eye shot (Herbert Anderson) is due to have his enlistment run out 12 days before the competition, and he really is homesick for his farm, so the rest of the movie has to do with Oakie and Haley getting him to change his mind and reenlist.

At 108 minutes long, this movie is just TOO long. At a time when films often ran 80 minutes, that would have been a more appropriate running time. There are too many lame jokes, that are lame precisely because situations run on too long, and the subplots would have been funnier if they had been more to the point.

What's good about this movie? I really loved the big band big musical numbers with Ann Sheridan singing. The title song is particularly catchy. You also get a glimpse of Jackie Gleason when he is starting out, Jack Carson just as he arrives at Warner Brothers where he really perfects his somewhat unlikeable "gray guy" persona, and Martha Raye is used to good effect as the ex-wife of one of the goofball sailors who demands she gets her alimony.

As for me mentioning this film is a moment captured in time - consider this. The film was made three months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. As the sailors keep mentioning, they joined the navy "to see the world", which is what you did in peacetime which was about to end. Honolulu was the playground of that peacetime navy, just as depicted in the film (actually filmed in San Diego). Thus something I just couldn't get out of my mind as I watched this somewhat silly yet utterly enjoyable 1941 film about the Navy in Hawaii was that it gives no hint of the horror to come - how could it?, and probably thus had a very narrow window in time in which it was the least bit relevant before it would have to be put in mothballs for probably at least ten years or else it would appear almost flippant to those going through WWII and then afterwards, to those who had been through it and survived.

I was working in The Imperial Theatre in Charlotte,NC in 1941 when this movie was shown. It, along with The Fleets In, is the reason I joined the Navy and served 33 years. Jackie Gleason, even though he had few lines, did a good job and exibited what would become his trade mark in the future.

With a ukulele playing in the background, and all those HUGE Hollywood names, how could you NOT have a great time? Haley (The Tin Man!), Ann Sheridan & Jack Carson from SO many great films. Martha Raye, Jackie Gleason. Herb Anderson is in here as the dumb hick; Anderson will be Henry Mitchell, Dennis the Menace's dad in the TV series. Jack Oakie was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in The Dictator. In our story, Cake (Oakie) and Powerhouse (Haley) set up a gambling scam in a get rich quick scheme aboard a navy ship. This film was released in September 1941, so J-U-S-T a couple months before the big surprise at Pearl Harbor. It definitely still has the upbeat, happy go lucky feeling of fun and adventure in the Navy. Their entire gig depends on Homer (Anderson), but of course it all comes apart at the seams. Sound and picture are excellent. The story moves right along. Jack Carson doesn't have much of a role here, but it all works! I had never seen this one before... hopefully Turner will show it often -- it's fun. There's a slightly dirty song about all the things that happen "In Waikiki"... and of course a drag number with Oakie and Haley. I'm surprised at the lower rating, as of today, only 6.5 stars. Directed by Lloyd Bacon, who had started in the silents. Bacon worked with Lucy on a couple films, and made a truckload of war timers during WW II.