SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Jakester This is an entirely watchable World War II film. I say this with surprise, because I avoided the movie for years. I was aware of it as a kid growing up in the '60s - it showed up on "Saturday Night at the Movies" on NBC but I steered clear of it - I was probably turned off by the not-very-good TV series with the same title.Jack Lemmon is excellent here in a sort of Ensign Pulver sequel. Ricky Nelson, 20 years old (strongly resembling the young Mel Gibson) is pretty good. Nelson was at the height of his fame in 1960, with a multimedia thing going on, consisting of his daddy's TV show, movies, and, most prominently, hit records. (The man had 17 Top Ten hits in his career!)There's a gritty authenticity to the picture - for example, the sailors sweat a LOT just like they did in the South Pacific during the war. The grit combines with some laughs; this combination works well. (See "Father Goose" and "Mr. Roberts" for additional examples of this genre, drama/comedy-during-WWII.) Mike Kellin is very effective as the chief petty officer. Tom Tully is solid and subtle as the port captain - Tully suffered a tragic fate a few years later, see his listing here at IMDb for the sad details."Wackiest Ship" kind of falls apart toward the end when Jack Lemmon isn't around as much; it might have benefited from a few more minutes of Tom Tully. But on the whole it's 99 minutes well spent (it seems a little too short).

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

bob the moo When Lieutenant Rip Crandall is offered his first command he jumps at the chance. However when he arrives at his 'ship' he finds that the Echo is more of a tub than a destroyer – being practically a yacht! With an inexperienced or inept crew and a second officer who has barely ever been on water for any length of time, Crandall is ready to drop out until guilt gets the better of him and he decides not to leave the young Ensign Hanson carrying the bag. After a few days of intensive and quite unsuccessful training, Crandall's ship sets off on its mission.Starting out with a credit sequence and opening 10 minutes that suggests that the film may be as 'wacky' as the title suggests, it gradually settles into humour that is rather basic but passable before going for a more traditional plot that lacks humour and fails to really be that interesting. In some regards the turn away from the 'wacky' first few minutes was a relieve because I really don't like things that knowingly describe themselves as 'wacky' (personal ads with the words 'bubbly' or 'wacky' are generally my idea of hell) and the humour at the start of this just seemed too forced. However once it settles, it settles into humour that isn't very funny but is amiable enough. This continues with the usual 'training' stuff and 'mishaps' that passes for entertainment just about but then in the final 30/40 minutes it tries to actually have a plot – and falls to pieces as a result.By this point I didn't really care about the plot more than a basic description and it was too late in the day to try and suddenly become engaging or exciting. The film also completely drops the humour (for what it was) and creates such a sudden change of tone that its like watching another film – something that damages it even further. Of course, its not awful, its just a film of two halves, neither of which are much cop but neither of which are really bad. The cast doesn't help much either since most of them are fairly average and just play to the level of the humour. Lemmon tries hard but cannot do much other than his usual stuff – which isn't as good when it is built on material like this. Nelson is about as wooden as you could get and only has presence when he is given a musical number – he was a singer after all and never really convinced me as an actor. The support cast are pretty average and you can see their basic characters in almost any other 'useless ensemble crew' movie that you can pick.Overall this is a strange film that doesn't really work. It tries to be wacky and funny but the material is weak and it never really gets going, with the humour tailing off with every passing minute. When it eventually drops off altogether, the plot becomes more of a traditional war story but by then it is too hard to really care what is going on and it more or less fails too. As a total film it is a strange split; neither of the two halves really work but neither of them are bad. The end result is a film that is just about passable but one that will disappoint many who view it regardless of their expectations.