In The Navy

Navy Lark Ascending

In The Navy
Directed by Arthur Lubin
USA 1941
Universal Pictures
Shout Factory Blu Ray Zone A

Abbott and Costello were so popular already that they released four movies in 1941 alone and this one, In The Navy, was the second of them. This one stars the famous singing star Dick Powell as the main romantic lead (three years before he tried to change his image by playing a pretty good version of Philip Marlow, if memory serves, in Murder My Sweet aka Farewell My Lovely), Claire Dodd as his romantic interest (who played Della Street in the Perry Mason flick The Case Of The Velvet Claws, reviewed here) and, also as a kind of semi-villainous authority figure role, Dick Foran (this film sandwiched between, among others, his two The Mummy sequels The Mummy’s Hand, reviewed here and The Mummy’s Tomb, reviewed here). 

While it’s a case of Bud and Lou being punctuated by the intrusive ‘reporter tries to break the story of the singing sensation who joins the Navy incognito to escape his adoring, female public before falling in love with him’ plot, along with various musical outbursts, most of which didn’t land for me this time, apart from the wonderful Andrews Sisters numbers in the movie, they don’t take a back seat as much... but, I have to say, I didn’t like this one as much as the previous two movies, for sure. Which just shows how much I know because, the general public liked it fine and the picture raked in even more box office bullion than their previous picture Buck Privates (reviewed here). This wasn’t a direct sequel to that movie, with the boys playing different characters but, there was one coming for sure. Actually, they already had the next picture in the can before this but, because the American public wanted more ‘service pictures’, the Navy movie was released first.

And, although I didn’t find it quite as entertaining, there’s still a lot of nice comedy moments in this and some points of interest too. The routines they do, a couple of them aided by Shemp Howard of The Three Stooges again, are mostly okay but they are still quite amusing and there’s one extended sequence involving spitting water at each other where the guys (and everyone else on set) keep cracking up and spilling the water, with all those takes left in. There are some nice dialogue moments too... for instance, when the lead actress stowing away introduces herself to Lou as Dot and when Lou sees someone coming for her, he yells “Dash, Dot! Dash!” Which made me smile. Also, when Lou asks Bud what some men are working on in a photo, Bud replies ‘That’s a hull of a ship!” Lou says, “You’re telling me. But what’s that thing they’re working on!” Or when Lou is reading about what Stern, Bow and Starboard is and Dot asks him where the Port is, he directs her that it’s near the ice box. 

So yeah, there’s some good dialogue and also some nice visual comedy, such as the moment Lou draws a big hook on a blackboard and then hangs his hat on it like it’s a real one. But there’s also some interesting metatextual stuff going on in the movie too, such as the opening credits where Bud and Lou are hoisting flags up with the names and titles on them and they flag up that it’s Buck Privates, before Bud points out that Lou got the wrong flag and they hoist it back up as In The Navy. And another scene where Lou says he’s going to go out and buy loads of Andrews Sisters records and starts singing one of the songs from the previous film... which is almost fine because the Andrews Sisters are kinda playing versions of themselves in this one but... yeah, it’s still kinda hammering lightly at that fourth wall, for sure. 

The most curious thing, for me, was a whole extended 15 or 20 minute sequence near the end of the movie where Lou accidentally gains control of the ship and sends it on some bizarre military manoeuvres (courtesy of some not too convincing miniatures, it has to be said)... which then suddenly turns out to be part of a dream after he knocks himself out with a sleeping draft. Well, I thought this was a pretty strange choice for the movie, being as it’s right near the end but, reading up on it, it was never originally supposed to be a dream sequence. What happened was, when the Navy saw the crazy movements the ship was making in this big sequence, they immediately withdrew their support for the film... so the studio changed it to being a dream sequence and then they were back ‘on board’ with the film, if you’ll excuse the pun (and why wouldn’t you?). 

And that’s me done on In The Navy, I think. Again, I didn’t like this one as much as the other two but it’s still quite entertaining for the most part and I’m still looking forward to seeing the other 20 plus movies in Shout Factory’s well restored Blu Ray box. I’ll let you know how that turns out.