James Hitchcock The action takes place in 1945, in the "waning days" of World War II. The "Mister Roberts" of the title is Lieutenant Douglas Roberts, cargo officer aboard the United States Navy cargo ship "Reluctant". The ship's work of keeping the Navy supplied is vital to the war effort and Roberts performs his duties conscientiously and well, but he is dissatisfied with life. This is partly due to the fact that he longs to see combat action, which he regards as a more exciting and honourable, if more dangerous, form of service, and the "Reluctant's" work keeps her well away from the actual fighting. It is also, however, partly due to a personality clash between Roberts and the ship's captain, Lieutenant Commander Morton.Roberts is not the only person with whom Morton clashes. Indeed, he seems to have a personality clash not only with Roberts but with the whole of his crew (and probably with most of the human race).He is an unpopular martinet, obsessed with maintaining strict discipline and imposing harsh punishments for minor infractions of the rules. He is also obsessed with trying to promote his own career by sucking up to the top brass; a palm tree presented to him by an Admiral as a reward for his crew's performance plays an important role in the plot. Roberts has made several requests for a transfer to another ship but all have been rejected after Morton refused to endorse them, not because he is desperate to keep Roberts as part of his crew but because he is anxious to do a bad turn to a man he dislikes. Much of Morton's dislike of Roberts is rooted in inverted snobbery; he is of working-class origin, and at one time worked as a waiter, and resents the educated middle classes, to which Roberts belongs, for the condescending way in which they treated him. In some ways, Morton reminded me of Humphrey Bogart's Captain Queeg in "The Caine Mutiny", another film from the mid fifties about a tyrannical wartime naval captain. The main difference is that "The Caine Mutiny" is a serious drama whereas "Mister Roberts" is, generally, a comedy. For most of its length the film is played for laughs with Morton as a figure of fun; the crew flirt with pretty nurses, run riot during a long- delayed shore leave on a Pacific island and spend most of their time trying to do as little work as possible and to get around their hated captain's regulations. One officer, Ensign Pulver, spends most of his time idling in his bunk. Only towards the end does the tone of the film become more serious. Henry Fonda, as Roberts, plays his role competently enough, but I still felt he was miscast. In 1955 he would have been 50 years old, too old for a junior officer, and I felt that the role should have gone to a significantly younger man. The studio (Warner Bros.) apparently would have preferred either William Holden (13 years younger) or Marlon Brando (19 years younger) but were overruled by director John Ford who insisted on Fonda. In the event this proved to be an error on Ford's part as he and Fonda repeatedly clashed on set, even though they had previously worked together on "Fort Apache". Ford also clashed with another of the film's stars, James Cagney. This was to be one of the reasons (health problems were another) why Ford was replaced as director midway through filming by Mervyn LeRoy. (Both men were credited). Jack Lemmon rather surprisingly received the 1955 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Pulver. I say "surprisingly" because, although there is nothing particularly bad about his performance, he was up against a much better one from Sal Mineo in "Rebel without a Cause". William Powell (acting in his last film, although he was to live for another three decades) is good as the kindly ship's doctor, but the best performance comes from Cagney as the bullying Morton, in my view better here than in "Love Me or Leave Me" for which he received an Oscar nomination in the same year. The film itself was nominated for "Best Picture", a nomination which looks odd when one considers that movies as great as "Rebel without a Cause", "East of Eden" and "Bad Day at Black Rock" were overlooked. This strikes me as an example of two potentially good films being incongruously joined together to produce, if not a bad one, then a mediocre one. It would have been quite possible to produce a good comedy about a wartime naval crew's battles against an unpopular captain. It would have been equally possible to produce a serious wartime drama about a naval officer who yearns for a transfer to an active combat role, despite the increased risk to his personal safety. Trying to combine both stories in a single tragi-comedy evidently proved more difficult. Comic relief can be an effective device in a predominantly serious play or film. The trouble with "Mister Roberts" is that it tries to do the opposite, introducing tragic relief into an essentially comic film, and the result is that the final scenes strike a jarring note indeed. 6/10

gavin6942 A comedy-drama about life on a not particularly important ship of the US Navy during World War II...Henry Fonda makes a solid leader (I mean, gee, he played Abraham Lincoln) on board a ship with a selfish, almost hermit-like captain (played effortlessly by James Cagney -- some of his best work, albeit in a small role). Who better to be the anchor on this ship of men lost at sea (figuratively)? And Jack Lemmon... oh my. He really lets his hair down here. He has some great roles throughout his career, but here he just goes the full way to perfection. How does such a character survive on such a stressful ship? Who knows? But he is the perfect comedy relief in what is otherwise too tense of a story.

fredlondi I came across this movie last night on Turner Classic Movies and, I must say, it's the most overrated and sluggish pile of garbage I've seen in a long time.Henry Fonda plays a dreary old sad-sack who complains constantly about being stuck on a Navy supply vessel during World War II. In the first ten minutes, it is immediately apparent that this is going to turn into a "I wanted to go, but now I can't bear to leave" kind of story, but the movie delays this as long as possible, thinking it's clever. Instead, waiting for the inevitable is just as tedious as everything else in this movie. The fellow members of Fonda's crew all act like a bunch of Ritalin-infused five-year-olds on Christmas morning, each with insufferably flamboyant personalities. Yeah, I get it movie, they all want to go on shore leave because the captain's a jerk. I get it. Not a single one of the crew members is interesting, although one of them does sound exactly like Hank Venture from "The Venture Brothers."Speaking of Adult Swim, one redeeming feature of the film is when James Cagney's character of The Captain acts out a scene later depicted in "Sealab 2021" entitled "Happy Cake." Captain Cagney's freaking out about someone throwing his prized palm tree into the ocean is hilarious as, almost line for line, "Sealab" paid homage to it when Captain Murphy's toy oven is also thrown into the sea. I also liked the split second when it looked like Jack Lemmon was going to sink his own ship, but I was pretty ticked to find out it was a lame deluge of laundry bubbles. And, at the end of the film, it was actually pretty hilarious when, after all his complaining, Henry Fonda finally makes it onto a destroyer only to get killed drinking coffee.Other than that, the film is not worth the more than two hours of your life it will consume. To its credit, the film does effectively make YOU feel like you're trapped on this ship - which members of the film community will chirp about being "brilliant" for being metatheatrical or whatnot - but keep in mind that such people forget that films are supposed to be entertaining, and not every story demands it play out like a Greek drama.And that's the other problem with this movie: PACING. Even if your movie is about someplace where nothing happens, pacing is still important. Otherwise you may as well just replace the seats in theaters with beds. Consider "Duel" or "Cast Away," for example, where one character in absolute solitude can still be captivating. They're both flawed movies, too, but I must say they conveyed their messages much more effectively. "Mister Roberts" is the antithesis of this model, lumbering and moping along until it fizzles at the finish. It's a musical with no songs. It's "Clerks" without the profanity. It has "Return of the King" Endless Ending syndrome, moving from the natural ending after they get kicked out of port to MORE pointless scenes of little to nothing happening. If anything, it's more like "Ocean's 11," featuring an "impressive cast" just standing around doing nothing. That being the case, Henry Fonda is certainly the film's George Clooney.Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Twentysomething internet poster doesn't know squat about "classic" movies and needs Michael Bay to make things interesting. Well, let me tell you this: "To Kill A Mockingbird" is an awesome movie. "12 Angry Men" is an awesome movie, and Henry Fonda was awesome in it. "Casablanca" was a REALLY awesome movie. "Mister Roberts," on the other hand, is an insult.

internationaldave My late Father's favorite movie. Between him and my Brother, they have 50 years of Navy behind them. Neither one ever set foot on a bucket, though. They were both Navy Aviation. A movie like this is timeless. James Cagney plays such a convincing idiotic officer. I was Army Aviation and Air Defense Artillary for 3 years and I have seen my share of moronic officers. Anyone who hasn't seen it is missing out. The ending was about the last thing you would expect. I have seen the movie quite a few times over the years, going back to the early '60's and saw it again last night after a few year lull. Martin Milner as the VERY southern Shore Patrol Officer was great! I would have never guessed it was him until I saw the credits. "Festus" from Gunsmoke is also in it, though you can't recognize him. No one should miss this one.