★ 6 / 10
This is all fairly standard fayre, but there
CinemaSerf
This is all fairly standard fayre, but there is still something special about the hugely charismatic James Cagney here as he goes through the motions in this…
This is all fairly standard fayre, but there is still something special about the hugely charismatic James Cagney here as he goes through the motions in this predictable marine yarn. “Chesty” (Cagney) is what you might call a reluctant sailor who pretty swiftly falls foul of his CPO “Biff” (Pat O’Brien), a situation that only worsens when he takes a shine to “Dorothy”(Gloria Stuart) who just happens to be his new nemesis’s younger sister. Under no circumstances is this ne’er do well going to be allowed to court his sister, and if that means all out warfare between the two men, then that’s fine! Of course, she wants peace to break out between them aboard the recently refitted USS Arizona, but what chance? It’s an amiable vehicle for Cagney that plays along without too many big waves as it races along from seaborne antics to airborne ones aboard a giant zeppelin-style dirigible - the USS Macron - where a denouement between these two men is bound to occur. On that combative front, the film works. O’Brien and Cagney bounce well off each other and it’s pretty clear that there is a respect, even affection, between these two actors as they squabble through this ninety minutes ably abetted by an on-form Stuart and some quite entertaining dialogue. Keep an eye out for, or more likely feel sorry for “Droopy” (Frank McHugh) and put your earplugs in for Maude Eburne and you ought to enjoy it well enough.
★ 7 / 10
"Holy smoke, look at the trim lines on that destroyer!"
classicsoncall
For me, it's always cool to come away from a picture with something that was entirely unexpected. In the case of "Here Comes The Navy", I literally did a jump…
For me, it's always cool to come away from a picture with something that was entirely unexpected. In the case of "Here Comes The Navy", I literally did a jump in my seat to see and hear mention of the U.S.S. Arizona, the famed battleship that went down during the infamous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought our country into World War II. I had only seen this huge ship before in documentary footage covering that historical event, so it was a rare treat to see aspects of daily routine occurring aboard ship during the film's run.
The other treat of course, is catching Jimmy Cagney and Pat O'Brien in the first of their many team-ups for First National/Warner Brothers. You know, I still can't get over the fact that some of their best work together took place over seventy years ago! In this one, the duo is at odds with each other, as Cagney's character Chesty O'Connor, signs up for a stint in the Navy just to get aboard the ship commanded by his nemesis Biff Martin (O'Brien). There's not a whole lot of credibility to the timing and coincidence necessary for that particular circumstance to take place, but that's no problem for the movies. Complicating matters further, wouldn't you know, is that Martin has a sister (Gloria Stuart) that Chesty goes for, so right there you've got the makings for an even more heated rivalry.
Speaking of which, that seemed to be a common plot element in many of the early Warner Brothers flicks of the era. In the 1937 prison movie "San Quentin", inmate Humphrey Bogart had a sister that the warden fell for, thereby giving the impression that Bogey's character was getting preferential treatment. The warden - Pat O'Brien!
You really have to catch one of Cagney's early films to get a sense of where all that enormous talent came from. This picture offers a dance scene, part of the 'Iron Workers' Frolic', that allows Cagney to strut his fancy footwork. I got a kick out of the poster advertising the dance contest; I've never seen one before that promoted 'Big Doings'! Just another one of the visual treats you can appreciate from a picture from the 1930's. Another was catching Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams as the dance floor manager looking almost impossibly young, but in checking, I was shocked to learn that by the time of this movie's release, he had already been in over eighty pictures!!! Learning something new every day.
Anyway, story wise, you won't find anything resembling an Oscar contender here, but you can still have some fun with this first Cagney/O'Brien team up. Character actor Frank McHugh, a frequent Cagney supporter is on hand to lend comic relief. His gimmick has to do with buying his mother a pair of false teeth - and to think, back then you could do it for twenty dollars! Now that's the good old days!
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