The Navy Way (1944)

Strong and Moving!

Sadly Over-hyped

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

The Navy Way is a WW2 propaganda film helping to recruit men into the US Navy. The story follows a bunch of the usual green recruits through the selection process and then the various gruelling training regimes they must undergo. It turns out that joining the navy is a character-building exercise that'll make a real man out of you, if we didn't know that already.The problem about this film is that it doesn't go anywhere, unlike Kubrick's similarly-constructed FULL METAL JACKET. The guys get together, fight, bond, and that's it. The ex-boxer is the most interesting character but he doesn't go anywhere either. The whole love triangle sub-plot just seems to be included to slow the pacing down further. There is a measure of realism here but as a film, THE NAVY WAY is severely lacking.

Robert Armstrong as a Navy CPO sees to the training of such various navy recruits as Robert Lowery, William Henry, Larry Nunn, Roscoe Karns, and Tom Keene in The Navy Way. This was a Pine-Thomas production from Paramount and was shot at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station.Trying to mold an Espirit De Corps among this lot isn't an easy job for Armstrong. His biggest problem is Robert Lowery who before he got drafted was a promising middleweight boxer from the wrong side of the tracks. The biggest thing holding him from going over the hill is Pharmacist's Mate Jean Parker. But Henry who is a rich kid who enlisted is also interested in her.As in Casablanca they all see that the problems of three people don't amount too much with the country at war. As for Lowery you can sympathize a bit with him because he's reaching his peak as a fighter. A whole lot of athletes in all sports missed their peak years during World War II.Certainly The Navy Way is rather dated as a film, but it's still good entertainment. As for the Great Lakes Naval Training Station that's still there and still molding recruits The Navy Way.

A routine program filler with some familiar faces in the cast -- Rosco Karns, Robert Armstrong of "King Kong," Horace McMahon in a walk-on. It's sort of a training film -- "What to Expect When You Join the Navy and What You Should Avoid Doing." The opening narration tells us about the men in civilian clothes who are being marched into the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, "Yesterday, you lived in Glencoe, Illinois, in Hammond, Indiana, in Podunk, Nebraska. And you were a machinist, a clerk, a farmer, a philatelist (well, not that), but today you're joining the Navy and you are sailors." That's fine for the half dozen men whose careers we follow, but a little upsetting to Johnny Zumano, a boxer whose career was just getting started and who wanted to become a champ to provide for his impoverished parents. Johnny, whose story this chiefly is, gets over his initial frustration but when, on top of everything else, he is dumped by his girl friend he gets drunk and is about to be court martialed and discharged.Through the seasonable interposition of a gracious providence, the four-striper who is about to pull the lanyard on the guillotine of justice overhears Johnny talking to the chaplain. "Gee, I wanted to stay in the Navy something awful and ship out with the other fellas but I couldn't tell the Captain that." Johnny has his pride, see, and he don't go whining to nobody.However, the Captain having overheard Johnny's confession, so to speak, now realizes how committed Johnny is to the U. S. Navy. Does Johnny avoid a discharge? Does he join his comrades? Do they ship out together? No power on earth could drag the answers from me.It's a low-budget effort, true, and we can't expect too much in the way of acting or story or art direction. Yet, every time I tell myself that, I think of Val Lewton over at RKO who in the same time period was churning out one little gem after another on a similar budget, and horror pictures at that, with such unpromising titles as "The Leopard Man." Or, ten years later, the inexpensive but vernacular art of the Scott-Boettiger Westerns. It's the difference between merely doing a job and showing some degree of craftsmanlike care in your product.

This is a flag-waving programmer about the lives of boots at the Great Lakes Training Facilities during World War II. It manages to cover all the bases without doing much wrong. This Pine-Thomas feature -- they were known as "Dollar Bills" because of their ability to squeeze out a decent flick on a tight budget -- manages to have a few interesting bits despite a lack of top-notch talent.The central story, about turning around an unwilling draftee Robert Lowery, who is more interested in winning a boxing championship than the War, and his romance with gorgeous WAVE Jean Parker is a bit subpar, but a fine supporting cast including a humorous ex-shoe clerk Roscoe Karns, cowboy Tom Keene whose son has already died in the war and and Robert Armstrong as their instructor manages to keep things humming along.