I have never seen The Wackiest Ship in the Army, but I was thinking about the title of that movie before I started playing the disc for the 1962 feature We Joined the Navy. This ended up being a light-hearted romp, but fairly intelligent for the first two acts, when I was thinking, “OK, not the wackiest ship in the army.” Then it took a hard turn into farce in the third act and I thought, “Great, this is now the wackiest ship in the army.”
I expected better from director Wendy Toye. In addition to being one of the few female directors at that time, she helmed the amazing first segment of the Three Cases of Murder anthology. The UK press derided her for Navy, saying a woman wasn’t the right person to helm a movie about the military. Needless to say, that’s unfair. Nobody could have made a decent movie from a script with a final third like this one has.
But let’s start at the beginning, when the picture had promise. Kenneth More is a naval officer who is too smart for his own good. The movie opens with an excellent montage of him getting bumped to different posts in quick succession as he repeatedly proves he is smarter than his superiors. It isn’t even like he’s trying to show off. It’s more that he is trying to save them from embarrassment.
He eventually lands a spot on the board reviewing young applicants for the naval academy. More is instructed they want a certain type of boy to be destined to become a naval officer: “We want half-wits. If they had any intelligence, they wouldn’t be here.”
The interview sequence is hilarious. Most of the candidates only get a line or two before a cut back to the board on the other side of the table as they turn, in unison, to the next application form.
Three candidates stand out, however, and they are played by Derek Fowlds, Dinsdale Landen and Jeremy Lloyd. I would have thought Fowlds would be too intelligent to be the kind of “half-wit” they’re looking for, but I’m guessing More sees a younger version of himself in the lad. Landen is simply into sport of any kind and, despite his genial nature, is always spoiling for a fight. Lloyd is an upper-crust layabout with no discernable talents, except for a quick wit. He also happens to the son of a member of Parliament who has been trying to defund the navy with his accusations it is useless. When asked why Lloyd’s father encouraged him to enlist, the youth replies, “My father thinks I’m useless, too. Maybe he’s getting revenge on both of us.”
The remainder of the first act takes place at the naval academy. I was stunned by how much I enjoyed this part of the movie. At this point in the film, the humor is confined to realistic scenarios, though I still enjoyed the scenes in a class where the students are instructed on how to dance with women. Mind you, there’s only boys in the school, so half of them must pretend to be the opposite sex.
Fowlds, Landen and Lloyd get into trouble at the academy and each will have a conversation in More’s office where the man can dispense some thoughtful wisdom in a manner Robin Williams might have done in Dead Poets Society if he could have reigned in his manic energy. Some pearls of wisdom More imparts include “we know we must never believe anything written about the navy, especially if its based on logic”, “the exercise of logic in the royal navy can often lead to disaster” and “rank is the authority to be right when you’re wrong”.
Unfortunately for More, remarks like this make it back to Lloyd’s father, played by John Le Mesurier. Those remarks, as relayed passionately on the floor of Parliament make news around the round. I guess it was a slow news year.
This leads to the second act, where More and his three favorite students are put on an American cruiser captained by Lloyd Nolan. Not sure why British officers would be stationed on an American Navy vessel. Maybe there is some sort of officer exchange program between the countries? I don’t know about that, but I was willing to accept this.
The Brits end up on Nolan’s shitlist even before boarding the ship. Each midshipman is given a different duty according to their chief personality trait. By that, I mean they are tasked with chores at which each is destined to fail. For example, Lloyd is made responsible for producing an on-board show to entertain the troops and he chooses a group of strippers. Myself, I think that would be the perfect show for that audience, but what do I know.
I felt the humor start to get a bit too zany when Fowlds, who gets easily sea sick, loses control of the dinghy he is responsible for piloting from ship to shore. He ends up zipping around the harbor in undercranked footage which only manages to make the mayhem less funny.
This scene was a portent for the awful third act where the vessel is moved to another location where they are to defuse a delicate international situation. The three British midshipmen go rogue and decide to perform the rescue mission themselves. Like that out-of-control dinghy, the movie wanders disastrously into Carry On territory.
It was sad to watch We Joined the Navy get progressively worst with each act, when it had started so strongly. I can imagine watching the first act on its own at some point in the future, but I may jump ship in the second act just before the dinghy episode.
Dir: Wendy Toye
Starring Kenneth More, Lloyd Nolan, Jeremy Lloyd, Dinsdale Landen, Derek Fowlds
Watched on StudioCanal UK blu-ray (region B)