The Baby and the Battleship

My FTA usually puts on great old movies with regularity and I am always eager to watch because I don't see much these days that has any real depth to the story, so I usually chew it up eagerly. So, this afternoon, I was treated to "The Baby and the Battleship". The name put me off a bit, but I saw that the there was quite a stellar cast and decided to stick with it while lying on the lounge and eating a nice hot pork dumpling soup with some jasmine tea (sounds kinda snotty-nose doesn't it?)

Well....that's where it ended.

If you thought that you were getting class with John Mills and Richard Attenborough, forget it. They have done better things when visiting the toilet when they get up of a morning. The whole movie is a milquetoast presentation with a poor shot at Marx Bros. mayhem that misses by quite a bit. From start to finish, the whole plot is just an unbelievable potpourri of badly written comedy, stiff acting and rubbish lines in general. It doesn't surprise me that the movie was panned by critics back in the 50's. What did stand out was the editing of the movie. My wife and I sat and watched the movie thinking that the baby (quite mature) that was used would have been blubbering intensely at the end of most scenes, but I believe that, due to editing, the kid was made to look like a total actor that was in control of itself at all times, which is more than I could say for the grown-ups. The rest of the cast were made to look like badly written cartoons.

Do yourself a favor and give this one a miss. The big names in this movie have made better and this must have been just a quick money-maker while they were in between projects.

It may not seem like it, but I'm lost for words with this one.