John Ford apparently directed half of this film and Melvin Leroy the other half. It is so lacking in any style that it is impossible to tell who did which scenes.
The play must have seemed original in the 1950's, but now it seems like an episode of McHale's Navy dragged out from 1/2 hour to 2 hours. One can also more generously look at it as a 1950's version of MASH without sex or blood.
The cast is great, but everybody, James Cagney, Henry Fonda, William Powell and Jack Lemon all did tons of better films.
It is a talky play without much action. We don't even see the one big explosion in the film, but only hear it off-screen and see soapsuds ridiculously pouring through the decks of a ship.
The more I see of Ford, the less impressed I am. His films tend to be about male bonding, and all the men act like 13 year old adolescents, except for the hero who always acts like a 15 year old adolescent. As in most of his films, women are basically off the radar or just hanging around the edges.
Again, the four lead actors are pros and could make reading the phone booth exciting, but the material is geared towards a 1950's middle-class mentality.
I think people were saturated with World War II action movies, so making a World War II movie without any action must have seemed like a real daring thing in the 1950's, but it just comes off as boring today.
I wish the character of the captain had been expanded. He is just not two dimensional enough and there is a lack of sympathy there. Actually, the film doesn't make sense in that the Captain is actually saving Robert's life by denying him his request to be a hero. Ensign Pulver's and the crew's anger at him seems unjustified.
The play must have seemed original in the 1950's, but now it seems like an episode of McHale's Navy dragged out from 1/2 hour to 2 hours. One can also more generously look at it as a 1950's version of MASH without sex or blood.
The cast is great, but everybody, James Cagney, Henry Fonda, William Powell and Jack Lemon all did tons of better films.
It is a talky play without much action. We don't even see the one big explosion in the film, but only hear it off-screen and see soapsuds ridiculously pouring through the decks of a ship.
The more I see of Ford, the less impressed I am. His films tend to be about male bonding, and all the men act like 13 year old adolescents, except for the hero who always acts like a 15 year old adolescent. As in most of his films, women are basically off the radar or just hanging around the edges.
Again, the four lead actors are pros and could make reading the phone booth exciting, but the material is geared towards a 1950's middle-class mentality.
I think people were saturated with World War II action movies, so making a World War II movie without any action must have seemed like a real daring thing in the 1950's, but it just comes off as boring today.
I wish the character of the captain had been expanded. He is just not two dimensional enough and there is a lack of sympathy there. Actually, the film doesn't make sense in that the Captain is actually saving Robert's life by denying him his request to be a hero. Ensign Pulver's and the crew's anger at him seems unjustified.