Navy Blues

As another review pointed out, shortly after this comic romp set among Navy enlisted men in Hawaii was made, things took a dramatic and deadly turn with the attack on Pearl Harbor. So that fact needs to be overlooked in order to enjoy this silly movie. (The scene in which an air attack is faked is particularly unfortunate).

All that aside, the main problem with this film is that it's basically one joke extended to an absurdly long running time of over 100 minutes. These types of slight comedies more typically ran around 80 minutes, and with good reason. Even though the running time is padded by the many musical numbers, the comedy routines are repetitive and I found myself wanting to start fast forwarding through them, never a good sign.

On the plus side, we have the always lovely and talented Ann Sheridan, who looks great doing a hula routine. She was an amazingly versatile performer of the type that we just don't see to have anymore. There are also some gifted comic actors (Jack Oakie, Jackie Haley, Martha Raye), though the script is so thin it feels like they are working overtime to be funny. A young, relatively slim Jackie Gleason has some good moments, but one of my favorites, Jack Carson, has a thankless straight man role.

My rating of 6 is based on the fact that I can watch Ann Sheridan in anything. (And this comes pretty close to being "anything.") Also, the historical interest of having a nostalgic snapshot of a more innocent time in history, just before the world changed forever.