Miss Pacific Fleet

This is a horrible film. It's not just horrible, it makes you angry when you realise why it was made so bad.

The only interesting thing about this (besides the electronic monkey) is that it's a classic example of how bad a picture can become when nobody involved wants to make it. Everything about this is excruciatingly awful: the story, the direction, the photography and the acting (especially the acting!) is shambolic.

Joan Blondell, the loveliest actress of the 1930s had had enough of having to play the exact same part in the exact same story with the exact same team and same director in her last four movies. She was a great actress but could see no end to her own personal Groundhog Day so tried to rebel against Warners. Cagney and Bette Davis had done the same and won and become massive stars. Joan unfortunately, maybe because she was going through a messy divorce at the time, didn't.

The studio then forced her do this as punishment. It was made really quickly on a shoestring so looked incredibly cheap. It was made badly on purpose which was Warners' way of crushing her ambition and keeping their asset doing what they wanted. It's so upsetting watching this because this atrocious, badly written, totally unfunny trash was how the studio if not exactly ruined but certainly stifled her career.