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Fresh and Exciting

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Mixing comedy, drama and a ton of patriotism, this late war film is a last minute attempt to get new blood in so the old blood can have a little rest. Cleverly opening with flashbacks of a bunch of the recruit's past, this is the beef stew of society as all types end up as buddies, some in with the most honorable of dreams, the others almost pushing and screaming in their efforts to stay out. But as the training influences take over their ideals, they all plan to serve together on the same trip.Robert Lowery headlines as a cynical boxer, ready for a shot at the title, but forced to change his plans when his draft card is pulled. Meeting pretty nurse Jean Parker has him convinced that he's in the right place but a last minute revelation has him discovering the truth about her feelings for him.Comedy is put in the hands of veteran character actor Roscoe Karns who had a misunderstanding with girlfriend Mary Treen and joins out of spite. Various others represent various social classes, aged and emotional maturities, but the message is clear: no man who wants to serve their country should be disqualified. Veteran actor Robert Armstrong overlooks the advancement of the recruits as they go from clumsy newbies to fully trained sailors ready for duty. Lowery gets a comical surprise when he whistles at Parker upon first sight and ends up being called over by her for reasons he doesn't expect. Other comic moments keeps the atmosphere light for a while, but there is a definitely serious theme of love of country and freedom at the front. As corny as it is to see the security's eyes widen in pride when the youngest recruit humbly repeats his oath, it's also a reminder of why we have fought for freedom and why we can't stop. In retrospect, this is probably the best of the low budget Pine Thomas features released by Paramount.

During WWII, all of the Hollywood studios, even the little ones, began churning out bazillions of patriotic propaganda films. They were designed to increase the public's support for the war as well as glamorize the idea of joining the service to serve in the war effort. Of these bazillion films, "The Navy Way" is pretty typical. While it's clearly sub-par compared to the films of bigger studios such as MGM or Warner, it's not bad for tiny little Pine-Thomas--a B-movie production branch of Paramount. Now when I say Bs, these are quickly produced, short and low-budget films made as a lesser picture in a double-feature. Most of them clearly were inferior to the better A-pictures--though there were many exceptions. Sadly, "The Navy Way" isn't one of these exceptions.The film is very much in the mold of "Buck Privates" or "In the Navy"--but without the comedy. You have a group of disparate prototypical guys. There is the cocky boxer who hates that he was drafted and won't allow himself to work as part of any team (take a wild guess what happens to him). There is the rich guy who is a swell guy down deep--choosing to become an enlisted man instead of cashing in on his position to get a cushy officer's job. There is the girl who comes between two guys. There is also the somewhat comedic character--played by Roscoe Karns who made a career out of playing such roles. There are many other stereotypical sorts of men as well--and you KNOW by the end they will be honorable and tough fighting men. It's all pleasant but entirely unremarkable as well (other than starring Robert Lowery--the big-screen's first Batman). Not a bad time-passer but no more.By the way, this was filmed at the Great Lakes Training Facility near Chicago. My wife visited a friend who was in training there and was shocked to see that the place was landlocked AND sailors had to 'ask permission to come aboard'--even though this was for buildings, not ships!

During the war years, the prolific Pine-Thomas producing team made several low-budget war-themed b&w programmers on an independent basis that were then released through Paramount. The team managed to squeeze a lot of production value into these films by including lots of location shots taken at actual military bases and training facilities. The usual pattern, as seen in a film like AERIAL GUNNER (1943), for instance, was to send a second unit to the location (the Harlingen Aerial Gunnery School in Texas), and then film the Hollywood cast (led by Richard Arlen and Chester Morris) on cramped studio sets and in front of rear-screen projected scenes of the locations. A handy way to save money, but not the most convincing way to film training and combat scenes.With THE NAVY WAY (1944), Pine and Thomas took a different tack. It was the first of their productions to be filmed entirely on location, in this case at the U.S. Naval Training Station at Great Lakes, Illinois, with the entire cast of actors, led by Robert Lowery and Jean Parker, all on location as well. This has a significant influence on the way the film looks, feels and plays out. There's less of a hokey plot—usually the old chestnut about two guys making a play for the same girl and pulling tricks on each other to ace the other one out (see AERIAL GUNNER)—and more of an attempt to capture slice-of-life vignettes of various naval recruits in a particular unit trying to excel and get out into the war. The sore spot in the unit is Italian-American boxing champ Johnny Zamano, who resents being drafted and tries to use his connections to get out of service. When that fails, he only gradually comes around, with the help of his new buddies, and begins to live up to his obligations. There's much more of a propaganda feel to the proceedings than we saw in AERIAL GUNNER, SUBMARINE ALERT and MINESWEEPER, to name three others in this group of films that I've seen. This makes sense, given the needs of the war and the way the entire naval facility was made available for filming. The spirit of the base evidently infused the cast and filmmakers with a different kind of energy than they would have had back in Hollywood.There is a love triangle in the film, but it asserts itself late in the story and happens quite unexpectedly—kind of like the way such things happen in real life. Johnny's plausibly petulant reaction to this development leads to an act of reckless behavior that jeopardizes his unit's near-perfect record and his own navy career. The resolution is quite moving. The characters all behave like real people and not Hollywood stereotypes and we get pulled into the movie's emotional core much more willingly because of that.Robert Lowery, usually a straight arrow leading man in B-movies (he played Batman in a 1949 serial), struck me as an odd casting choice for a street-tough Italian-American boxer, but he's a good actor and he manages to pull it off, displaying just enough bitterness to be believable and just enough charm to eventually win over the other characters and the audience. Jean Parker, who resembles Claudette Colbert, plays the female medical officer who nurses Johnny's wounds after a bout on the base and attracts his romantic attentions. Her character is an independent adult woman with a clear sense of her own needs, desires and agenda and is not just an object bandied about between two male rivals. She makes the significant choices here, which is quite a sea change from the pattern established in the other films in the Pine-Thomas group. The cast is filled with quite a few other distinguished supporting players, most notably Robert Armstrong as the unit's training instructor; Bill Henry as a Chicago rich boy who joins up to prove himself; Tom Keene (billed as Richard Powers) as a cowboy who joins up after his son has been killed in combat; Roscoe Karns as an older recruit; and Mary Treen in a delightful performance as Karns' bubbly fiancée.This may not be the most exciting wartime film of its era, given its emphasis on training rather than combat, but, thanks to its location filming and solid cast, it's a most unusual one and well worth a look. I found it on Mill Creek's 50-film Combat Classics DVD set.

A routine program filler with some familiar faces in the cast -- Rosco Karns, Robert Armstrong of "King Kong," Horace McMahon in a walk-on. It's sort of a training film -- "What to Expect When You Join the Navy and What You Should Avoid Doing." The opening narration tells us about the men in civilian clothes who are being marched into the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, "Yesterday, you lived in Glencoe, Illinois, in Hammond, Indiana, in Podunk, Nebraska. And you were a machinist, a clerk, a farmer, a philatelist (well, not that), but today you're joining the Navy and you are sailors." That's fine for the half dozen men whose careers we follow, but a little upsetting to Johnny Zumano, a boxer whose career was just getting started and who wanted to become a champ to provide for his impoverished parents. Johnny, whose story this chiefly is, gets over his initial frustration but when, on top of everything else, he is dumped by his girl friend he gets drunk and is about to be court martialed and discharged.Through the seasonable interposition of a gracious providence, the four-striper who is about to pull the lanyard on the guillotine of justice overhears Johnny talking to the chaplain. "Gee, I wanted to stay in the Navy something awful and ship out with the other fellas but I couldn't tell the Captain that." Johnny has his pride, see, and he don't go whining to nobody.However, the Captain having overheard Johnny's confession, so to speak, now realizes how committed Johnny is to the U. S. Navy. Does Johnny avoid a discharge? Does he join his comrades? Do they ship out together? No power on earth could drag the answers from me.It's a low-budget effort, true, and we can't expect too much in the way of acting or story or art direction. Yet, every time I tell myself that, I think of Val Lewton over at RKO who in the same time period was churning out one little gem after another on a similar budget, and horror pictures at that, with such unpromising titles as "The Leopard Man." Or, ten years later, the inexpensive but vernacular art of the Scott-Boettiger Westerns. It's the difference between merely doing a job and showing some degree of craftsmanlike care in your product.