The Wackiest Ship in the Army

Crandall sinks into despair when he sees this wreck and this crew, but ensign Tommy Hanson (Ricky Nelson, as guileless and polite as Elvis) follows him like a puppy and sings the praises of ship & crew. Crandall's task is to pass trough the Great Barrier Reef and bring the ship to Port Moresby. General MacArthur in person devised this operation. Hanson butters Crandall up and sings a song (what did you expect?) and next morning the new-fledged and morning-afterish commander is more tractable.

The crew is anxious to make a good impression - what does it matter if the lifeboat is not watertight, the engine not functioning and the Coral Sea gale-lashed? The Allies want Lt. Foster (Richard Anderson) to take the ship over. He observes, half appalled, half gloatingly, how the ECHO gets caught in a mine-area and insists on firing the crew. But Crandall is not willing to give up his command. When Port Moresby is attacked he steers for the Salomon Islands to localize the Japanese convoy.

The passage is dangerous (storm, reefs, tidal waves) but they manage to escape a bomber group by dressing up as island beauties. They reach the Salomon Islands, fight their way through the jungle and witness atrocities. They discover the convoy but the ECHO and their commander fall into enemy hands. A Japanese major threatens the POW's with "questioning" and runs a sword through Crandall's breast. But the "inefficient" crew surpass themselves and transmit the position of the convoy: prelude to the little-known but decisive battle of the Bismark Sea.

Ostensibly a true story, the film is typical for the early Kennedy era. During the election campaign the public had an appetite for the president's war time adventures which were also filmed (PT 109) with Lemmon's old rival Cliff Robertson (he married Lemmon's first wife and made the first version of DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES) as JFK. The purpose of those films was to raise patriotic feelings by representing WWII as "boy's own adventure": a motley crew grows together under the moral leadership of stout captain Jack who makes naval heroes out of them in just three days. Lemmon cannot have been too enthusiastic to make this film right after THE APARTMENT, but, to his credit, his performance does not suffer. He is lissome like a cat when he swarms up a mast and most of the film is cheerful and hearty. The scene in the mine-area, however, is nerve-racking and the combat scenes brutal. The production values are higher than you might expect. Not a terribly important film but if it's a rainy afternoon and you have nothing better to do...