TheLittleSongbird 'Shipmates Forever' shares the same flaws and strengths of 'Flirtation Walk' with the same lead actors and director, but due to having better pacing and choreography 'Flirtation Walk' is the better film if only just.Like 'Flirtation Walk', the weak link is the story, which is wafer-thin and goes well overboard on the simplicity. One says that musical-comedies shouldn't be seen for the story, but as 'Shipmates Forever' is heavier on story rather than on the musical material and production numbers it is harder to ignore it. Again, like 'Flirtation Walk', Frank Borzage tends to make heavy weather of it, meaning that the pace does drag outside of the songs and the energy is not as light-on-its-feet as it should have been. The patriotic tone is sometimes laid on too thick too.The songs are very pleasant, with the highlights between "Don't Give Up the Ship" and particularly "I'd Rather Listen to Your Eyes", but there are more timeless and more memorable songs. The film is very scant on production numbers and what little there is is literally crying out for the involvement of Busby Berkeley who would have directed them with much more energy and imagination.However, 'Shipmates Forever' while not lavish still looks handsome and colourful as well as skilfully photographed. The script is smart and amusing, if a little too frothy in places.Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell are immensely likable and their chemistry is incredibly charming and a large part of the film's appeal. The rest of the performances are also good, with a fine supporting turn from John Arledge and a nicely quirky one from Ross Alexander.On the whole, a lesser Keeler-Powell film but still very much watchable. 6/10 Bethany Cox

mfrmd An enjoyable if slightly sappy movie with a fairly standard plot line. Notably, the song from this film "Shipmates Stand Together" is still performed as part of a medley by the US Naval Academy Men's Glee Club.Speaking about the music from the film, the US Military Academy's Alma Mater (that's Navy's gridiron rival West Point!) is used as background music at least three times, including in the closing scene. Interesting goof, possibly intentional?The scenes dealing with the upperclassmen "rating" the Plebes are fun; they are different in detail but not in quality from what goes on at the Academy even today.Of the movies available on VHS or DVD about the Naval Academy, I would rank this about in the middle:1. Navy Blue and Gold (1937) 2. Midshipman Jack (1933) 3. Shipmates Forever 4. An Annapolis Story (1955) - pretty bad. 5. Annapolis (2006) - truly dreadful.

dbdumonteil Frank Borzage is my favorite American director of the thirties (and of the twenties).His movies have worn so well ,his heroes are so endearing that I'm deeply moved every time I watch one of them.But this one....It may be "flirtation walk 2" but it has nothing of the greatness that shows in almost every work of the director:is it the same man who made "the mortal storm" ,"three comrades " (a paean to friendship which is far superior to "Shipmates forever") "Little man,what now?" "man's castle" ?It seems the negation of such works as "no greater glory" or " a farewell to arms" .Borzage 's heroes have to fight against an hostile world ("seventh Heaven" "street angel" "little man what now?") they are sweet rebels whose weapon is love and only love.Borzage's girls are not bimbos ,they are sometimes stronger than their male co-stars (see "the river" or "stranded" or "After tomorrow").Dick Powell's Richard is terribly bourgeois ,terribly conformist.Either he is stupid not to follow his dream (crooning) or he is the worthy (Hollywoodian) son from the start .Even more unpleasant is Ruby Keeler's June :not only she lost her father and her brother (in the navy) but she would not accept to marry Richard if he gave up the academy;an user smartly pointed out that it was exactly the subject of Taylor Hackford's "an officer and a gentleman" (1981),but it does not make "shipmates forever" a movie ahead of its time.Sorry to write this ,but this well-meaning jingoistic couple has nothing to do with most of all Borzage's lovers.Since it's a musical,Dick Powell sings four or five songs (depending on the version you're watching,the restored one lasting 2 hours+).Borzage's touch can be felt in one short sequence: the shipmate who failed his exams in the officer's office and his harsh words to the hero (who gets what he deserves anyway).To make a movie about the navy just after another one called "stranded " (in the figurative ,of course) is it a bit ironical on the director's part?In spite of its title,in "stranded" ,the heroine is not a passive sluggish navy girl "who comes second" like June who is nothing but a human medal.

bkoganbing I first saw this film over 40 years ago and viewing it again it was as good as I remember it. The team that brought you Flirtation Walk, director Frank Borzage and stars Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler did even better in my opinion with their film about a Naval Midshipman at Annapolis and his lady love.Like Flirtation Walk, both Powell and Keeler come from service families. But Powell's a disappointment to his father, Admiral Lewis Stone. He's a crooner on the radio and from what we see is making a pretty good living at it. Still a combination of persuasive techniques by Stone and Keeler get him to follow in the Naval tradition of his family.For reasons I don't understand Ruby did not dance a step in Flirtation Walk, but she makes up for it here. It was a weakness in the other film that is now remedied.Dick Powell got two lovely ballads to sing, I'd Rather Listen To Your Eyes and I'd Love to Take Orders from You. Possibly because he was changing record companies from Brunswick to Decca in 1935 he didn't record either of those songs commercially. That's a pity because he does them so well.What he did record was the song Don't Give Up the Ship with an orchestra and choral background. That song had a lot of popularity, so much so that the Naval Academy at Annapolis adopted it as their official song, something I'm sure Dick Powell and songwriters Harry Warren and Al Dubin must have been proud of.Like he did with Flirtation Walk, Frank Borzage got to do some location shooting for Shipmates Forever at Annapolis and on the battleship, USS Pennsylvania. It certainly made for a far more realistic setting than in most Thirties films.Unlike Flirtation Walk which was more upbeat, Shipmates Forever has the death of one of Powell's classmates which certainly lent a somber, but more realistic note to the proceedings.Ross Alexander, Eddie Acuff, and John Arledge play Powell's roommates and all do good jobs in roles they are usually typecast in. Shipmates Forever is one of Dick Powell's best Warner Brothers musicals from the Thirties and its charm is eternal.