bigverybadtom Jack Lemmon is a lieutenant given command of a small and decrepit sailing schooner. He initially tries to refuse this command, but after quite a bit of cajoling and intrigue, he finally accepts. And why does the Navy want him so badly to do it? As a civilian, he was a racer of sailing ships-and people in the Navy knew nothing about how to operate one, not even the crew assigned to this ship. And why is the Navy even using a sailing schooner to begin with? To reach a port in Japanese waters that neither a regular ship nor a submarine could access.A good potential idea, perhaps, but this comedy has few laughs in it. There were a couple of good scenes, such as a sailor crossing a big ship by being taken up in a crane standing on a hook, then moving to the hook of a second crane to be taken to the ship's opposite side, and there was a scene of the schooner fighting not to get crushed between two bigger boats coming alongside them. But most of the movie is insipid and unfunny, and we were too bored to make it to the end.

Spikeopath The Wackiest Ship In The Army is directed by Richard Murphy and written by Herbert Carlson. It stars Jack Lemmon, Ricky Nelson & Chips Rafferty. It's filmed in CinemaScope and Eastman Color on location at Pearl Harbour & Kauai (Charles Lawton Jr. director of photography).The basis for the film is to thrust the bemused Lemmon onto a past its sell by date schooner, and surround him with sea-faring characters who don't know a stern from a mast. Cue confusion with a mission that nobody is all too clear about and you get a knockabout farce launched from an Australian port in 1943. The writing unleashes the usual staples of people banging their heads on things, falling overboard and pulling exasperated looks from time to time. The last third of the picture oddly shifts to something resembling drama as the mission unfolds, but it's an awkward fit and one has to wonder what the intention of the makers was from the off.Funny in parts but dreary in others, the film is only watchable for Lemmon's gusto and Lawton Jr's lovely CinemaScope photography. 5/10

Chase_Witherspoon While it may have spawned a popular TV series, there's very little that's "wacky" about this big screen origin which doesn't seem to settle into an even pattern for either a comedy, or a light war-action film. Lemmon is the newly recruited and reluctant skipper of the Navy's laughing stock - a ragtag group of social rejects and dull blades, all affable types, just lacking the mettle required of active service. Lemmon has three days to turn them into a competent outfit, capable of piloting their lemon of a yacht on an ostensibly routine journey. Suffice to say that with the aid of inexperienced but promising young officer Ricky Nelson and no-nonsense chief mate Mike Kellin, the crew silence their detractors and unwittingly undertake a secret mission in enemy waters.The subsequent TV series with Jack Warden and Gary Collins was several years beyond its nexus, but superior in most facets, despite only lasting a couple of years. The dialogue is busy (Lemmon typically written in hyper-speed), there's plenty of slapstick humour much of it courtesy of pea-brained radioman Berlinger and some well orchestrated sea-faring action, but it never gels properly. Nelson sings (but doesn't act) while the fairer gender representation is left to Patricia Driscoll who performs an impressive down under accent.It's capable in its discreet elements, but collectively, disappointingly flat. Sort of a light-humoured marine Dirty Dozen that I'd recommend only to Lemmon fans or perhaps those who enjoy Nelson's expressionless crooning.

broosr It's too bad Hollywood stopped making war flicks like this one. They were much more enjoyable than the kind of hand-wringing performances you see nowadays. Lemmon took a break from chewing the scenery in the classics "Some Like It Hot" and "The Great Race" and returned to a more straight-man character of the kind he played in Mister Roberts. Although Lemmon is, as usual, great, the movie suffers somewhat from a bland supporting cast and the insufferable Ricky Nelson, whose acting is as wooden as it was in "Rio Bravo." Although slow to get going, the movie eventually takes off and maintains a robust pace to the conclusion. Note that TV showings tend to trim this one heavily, so if you see it sitting in the bargain bin, be sure to pick it up!For fans of Lemmon or the genre only!