SHIP AHOY
US, 1942, 94 minutes. Black and white.
Eleanor Powell, Red Skelton, Bert Lahr, Virginia O’ Brien, Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra, The Pied Pipers, Frank Sinatra.
Directed by Edward Buzzell.
Ship Ahoy is a wartime comedy with the touch of espionage. It is a star vehicle for Eleanor Powell who appears as a dancer, has the opportunity to do a range of dancing, especially her tap-dancing and athletic moves. Red Skelton is a writer of pop novels, writing three at once, a hypochondriac having a nervous breakdown who is booked on a tour to Puerto Rico by his assistant, played by Bert Lahr. Lahr is doing a line for another dance played by po-faced Virginia O’Brien?. Lahr and O’ Brien have some songs together.
There is a secret group wanting to export a mine to Germany via submarine and give it to the dancer, pretending to be the American authorities. There are agents on the boat, trying to find the mine and decide that it is in the luggage of Red Skelton.
The film is a pleasant comedy, has Eleanor Powell and Red Skelton falling easily in love, he learning to dance as well as to forget his ailments. However, there is a misunderstanding when she hears him talking about the novel character and thinks it herself. At the end, everything is sorted out – patriotically.
Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra perform quite a few songs in the film – and the young singer, uncredited, is Frank Sinatra. Edward Buzzell directed many MGM comedies at this time. He had directed the Marx Bros in At the Circus and Go West and Eleanor Powell in Honolulu.
1. A pleasing MGM musical? Comedy? Of the early 1940s?
2. Production values, black and white photography, the New York settings, the theatre? The boat? Puerto Rico? The sea?
3. The musical numbers, Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra, the instrument performers? Frank Sinatra and his songs? Eleanor Powell and Red Skelton and their songs, Bert Lahr and Virginia O’Brien? Eleanor Powell and her dance routines?
4. The show business background? Tommy Dorsey? Miss Winters? The plan to go on tour? Skip Owens and his friendship with Fran?
5. Merton K. Kibble, the spies reading his novels and despising them? His writing three at once, the dictation, hypochondria, the breakdown? Skip and his booking him on the boat?
6. Tallulah, her being taken in by the police, the confidential interview, the mine, putting it in her case, hiding it? The irony that they were spies?
7. On the boat, the shipboard romance, Tallulah and Merton? His coming out of himself? The incident with the deckchair? Learning to dance? Skip and his following Fran?
8. The spies, the plans, the mine? The mix-up with the cases, the comedy routine with the magnet on the deck and Merton unable to lift it, moving it and the assistant being able to pick it up easily?
9. The misunderstanding with Tallulah, her overhearing the wrong thing? Her despising of him? The reconciliation, the pretence, her escape? The truth about the mine? Reunited with Merton? His thinking he had done something heroic?
10. The picture of Nazi spies in the United States (1942 style)?
11. The patriotic themes? The entertainment value? Eleanor Powell and Red Skelton and their skills? Bert Lahr and Virginia O’ Brien and their comic styles? Frank Sinatra and his singing?
