In the Navy (1941)

Purely Joyful Movie!

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I have mixed feelings about this film. As an Abbott & Costello outing, it's darned good. As funny as probably any of their films, with one of my favorite bits -- the math problem. It gets sorta silly toward the end, but that's what Abbott & Costello are supposed to be.So what are my reservations? The use here of Dick Powell. Powell here is relegated to an almost minor supporting actor. Yes, he has a couple of decent songs, but his screen time is pretty brief overall. I would have rewritten the script substantially to eliminate Powell all together, and utilize Dick Foran, who was a good enough singer to handle the songs here. If I had been Powell, I would have been pretty unhappy about this casting.So for Abbott & Costello0 fans, you'll be quite pleased with this film...and in that regard, so am I. If you're a Dick Powell fan, you're not going to be a happy camper.Getting better treatment are the Andrews Sisters, who have several good numbers, and Patty is Lou Costello's love interest here. They shine.In general, this is a fairly standard service comedy. Lots of silly hi-jinks on a ship, including a very funny dream action sequence which nearly sunk the Navy's cooperation in making the film.As usual, Lou Costello carries the comedy here, with Bud Abbott pretty much just providing the straight lines, although Abbott is very good in the shell game sequence.One of the better Abbott & Costello efforts.

This is the second morale film that Universal put out in 1941 as the U.S. was building up its Armed Forces in anticipation of involvement in the war. World War II had officially begun Sept. 1, 1939, with Germany's invasion of Poland. But, Nazi Germany had taken over other countries before then. And, Japan had begun an invasion of China four years earlier. Germany invaded France on May 10, 1940, and Great Britain had declared war on Germany. That was the state of the world a year before "In the Navy" reached theaters in the U.S. It was anyone's guess when America might be drawn into the war. Few people could imagine how that would happen just six months later when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.As in "Buck Privates," Bud Abbott and Lou Costello don uniforms of a service to give the folks at home a look at service in the modern Navy, but with their comedy and hijinks added. The movie is built around a plot of an idolized crooner who is tired of the adulation from fawning women. So, he disappears to join the Navy incognito. Dick Powell plays that role nicely as Thomas Halstead. His love interest turns out to be a Paparazzi-type woman reporter/photographer who's trying to get the scoop on where the heartthrob singer has gone. Claire Dodd plays that role well as Dorothy Roberts. Along with Powell's couple of songs, the Andrews Sisters round out the entertainment in this comedy-musical romance. They don't have any hit tunes in this film, but the Andrews Sisters make any film more worthwhile viewing. They have one very different number – a Hawaiian luau song that is set to a swing beat. "In the Navy" doesn't have Bud and Lou in boot camp, but already serving in the Navy. The antics here are aboard ship and when hosting civilians. Bud is Smokey Adams and Lou is Pomeroy Watson. As in most of their films, the comics have some routines that they might have done in vaudeville. The Marx Brothers also did things like that in their movies. In most cases, it provides the best comedy of the films – for those who use this technique. The laughs here come from Lou getting the best of Bud for once. Bud again film-flams Lou in a money sketch. But in another one, Lou and Shemp Howard (as Dizzy) catch Bud in a version of a shell game. Then Lou has a long sketch in which he teaches Bud the basics of math. He can multiply, divide and add to show that 13 times 7 is 28. We also have a very funny sequence of ship maneuvering – naturally, with Lou in charge. But it turns out to be just a dream by Lou – otherwise the Navy wouldn't give its blessing for the film. So, after six years in the Navy, Lou and Bud will see sea duty, being assigned with Tommy to the Battleship Alabama. I suppose Universal wanted to use a fictitious name so as not to embarrass any sailors on a real ship of the time. And, with the Alabama in this film going to Hawaii, this fictitious ship would likely have been at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked it six months later. Perhaps providence had a hand in guiding the naming of the ship in this film. As it turned out, the Navy did later have a battleship named the U.S.S. Alabama. On Feb. 16, the next year, the Alabama was launched at the Norfolk (VA) Naval Shipyard. It first saw duty in the North Atlantic and Baltic Sea area, assigned to the British Home Fleet. Then, in August 1943, the Alabama sailed to the South Pacific. It saw combat in many of the war battles of the Pacific after that and earned nine battle stars It was decommissioned after the war. Since 1964, the Alabama has been in Battleship Memorial Park as a museum on the coast at Mobile, Alabama.Universal made one other movie with Abbott and Costello ("Hold That Ghost") after release of "Buck Privates" in February 1941. But the first film had received a great reception by the public, and the growing world tensions had many expecting the U.S. involvement in the war at any moment. So, the studio rushed the comedy duo and others into production of "In the Navy" and held back release of the "Ghost" until after this one. After "Ghost" they would do one more service film -- about the Army Air Corps. I think it's very interesting to see the scenes in this film of Hawaii. Some more recent books and films about World War II and the U.S. involvement try to give more drama to the Japanese attack of Dec 7, 1941, by saying that most Americans had never even heard of Pearl Harbor. That may be, but anyone who saw this movie, would probably have known about it. And, with the growing public interest in the armed services and the news commentaries about American defense and preparedness, it's likely that many more of the public at least knew that Pearl Harbor was the U.S. Navy base in Hawaii. One other interesting thing about this film is the frequent use of the slang term "gob" for enlisted sailors. One doesn't hear that term much today. I think it was used most often by the British, and apparently by Ameicans around that time. Besides its entertainment value, "In the Navy" is another WWII era film with some historical interest and value.

Released in 1941 - "In the Navy" was one of the top 5 most popular films of that year. And Abbott & Costello got a lot more screen-time to perform some of their most clever comedy routines, like the hilarious "Lemon Bit", a crooked, sleight-of-hand shell game, and the equally priceless math routine where Abbott proves to Costello that 7 times 13 equals 28.Just like "Buck Privates", "In The Navy" was also a WW2 service comedy, clearly intended to encourage American men to enlist in the US Armed Forces. And also, like "Buck Privates", this film contains a number of well-staged song & dance numbers, featuring the talents of The Andrews Sisters and crooner, Dick Powell.Bud and Lou play characters, Smokey Adams and Pomeroy Watson (respectively), a pair of rascally, bottom-of-the-rung, gopher gobs stationed on the US battleship, Alabama.As one could only expect from Bud & Lou, our navy boys never fail to get themselves into a whole lot of wacky trouble with a whole lot of their fellow shipmates.I think that it's interesting to note that before "In The Navy" could be released into theaters it was first screened for officers of the actual US Navy.When offence was found in the sequence where Pomeroy Watson (Costello) impersonates a captain and puts the battleship through a series of madcap maneuvers, it was ordered to be deleted from the picture.Since this sequence was the film's climax, it couldn't be removed and so Universal Studios solved the officers' complaints by making this sequence Pomeroy's dream. And, with that, everybody was happy.

"In The Navy" is the second Abbott and Costello service film, with a nod to their first, "Buck Privates" in the opening credits. Genuinely high on patriotism, it brings back The Andrews Sisters and Shemp Howard from the prior picture.The plot involves crooner Russ Raymond (Dick Powell) dropping out of the celebrity spotlight, only to join the Navy under the name of Tom Halstead. He is relentlessly pursued by newspaper photographer Dorothy Roberts (Claire Dodd), but gee, how many pictures did she need? As Smoky Adams (Abbott) and Seaman Pomeroy Watson (Costello), the boys are up to their usual antics which include Abbott's sleight of hand lemon routine, a money changing bit and a classic 7 times 13 equals 28, and Costello can prove it three different ways! In a slightly unsavory gag, the boys lay in wait for each other with mouths full of water ready to spray each other, but they keep breaking up and the sequence looks more like a series of outtakes that were left in the film.The Andrews Sisters are in usual fine form, with Patty much more animated in her lead role than in "Buck Privates". They keep the film moving with songs from beginning to end, with a few well choreographed production numbers thrown in. The highlight of the film though belongs to Lou Costello, as he impersonates the Captain of the ship to impress the Andrews Sisters, and commandeers the ship in a series of naval routines, defying all the laws of physics along the way. With two service comedies under their belt, Bud and Lou would wind up in yet another branch of the service very quickly in 1941's "Keep 'Em Flying", and with the war over, one final time in 1947's "Buck Privates Come Home", reprising the original characters from their first Army film.