Watch Stand by for Action For Free

How sad is this?

Excellent but underrated film

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Robert Taylor, Brian Donlevy, Charles Laughton, and Walter Brennan "Stand by for Action" in this 1942 WW II drama.Laughton appoints Ivy League Navy man Taylor as executive officer of a World War I warhorse, The Warren, commanded by Donlevy. It's an old ship and needs a lot of repair work, but there are people who believe in it, most notably, Yeoman Henry Johnson (Brennan), who was with the ship in WWI.En route to meet the convoy led by Laughton, the ship picks up survivors from a Hawaiian hospital - twenty babies and two pregnant women.I'm pretty sure "Stand by for Action" was supposed to be a stirring propaganda drama, but once the babies come on board, it sort of becomes a comedy. Two different movies and one confused script. Some of the action was good, though.I tend to watch Robert Taylor films as an homage to my late mother, who loved him. He always reminds me of her - after all, I knew his real name when I was still in grade school. It always cracks me up that he does roles like the Harvard grad in this, or the title role in A Yank at Oxford. He was a Nebraska farm boy who loved the outdoors and horses, something he shared with his first wife, Barbara Stanwyck. But he sure looked debonair. He did make some very fine films, my favorite being Escape, one of his best performances. After the war, he played villainous roles - go figure.Charles Laughton is great as usual as a commander with a desk job dying to get back to active duty; Brian Donlevy is good as captain of The Warren, and Walter Brennan gives a sympathetic performance as Yeoman Johnson.This movie needed to stick to one thing - resuscitating this barge and putting it into battle, or taking care of babies and pregnant women.

A very entertaining and rousing film, with a large part of it dedicated to a comedic angle. With a cast of Laughton, Donlevy, Taylor, Brennan and others, you could not go wrong. Sure....a destroyer trading gun fire with a battleship won't have a Hollywood ending, but still, it is an enjoyable film, and you won't go wrong killing some time enjoying it! I have always been a fan of Laughton..such a skilled actor and he pulls off his role as a seasoned admiral with skill and quite a bit of humor. Brian Donlevy always carried off his roles of authority...a currently under-appreciated actor. Robert Taylor....handsome as ever and good as the "go to" type of guy. The rest of the roles are filled with good characterizations.

What saves this routine film is the sharp sudden comic turn when the babies show up. It is at this point when Charles Laughton shows his mettle. From the beginning of the film, I thought that Laughton had been terribly miscast.While Brian Donlevy is in solid form, kudos must go to Robert Taylor, especially when he is confronted with the infants on board.Until the arrival of the babies, the film was quite dull at best. Walter Brennan plays his usual role as a dedicated enlisted man. Amazingly, he recovered real fast to sink that Japanese ship.What weakens this film is that there is no really romantic interests in it. Yes, we could have had it despite the misery that World War 11 brought as well as the human sacrifices that had to be endured.

This film starts very strong with Robert Taylor playing a Ivy League-trained Reserve Navy Officer who so far during WWII has become accustomed to serving duty in an assignment on the fringe of the war as an Admiral's aide where he enjoys plenty of hobnobbing with females at Washington DC social events. His commitment is put to the test when his boss assigns him as Executive Officer of a rusty WWI Tin Can that he must now man and ready for deployment.Brian Donlevy is solid as always as the Tin Can's skipper and given our current Middle East military call-ups, the film points to some interesting issues regarding the Reservist Taylor serving on active duty in wartime. A film worth watching, but ultimately, however, it saps itself too deep in corny WWII patriotic sentimentality, thereby missing an opportunity to become one of the better war films.