Sailors Beware!

Sailors Eugene Pallette and Walter Catlett are out looking for girls. Meanwhile Dorothy Granger and her mob have heard a sailor with an anchor tattooed on his chest has won a $100,000 lottery, so she's looking for him to roll. It starts out risque and rapidly grows outrageous, with Pallette spitting out ball bearings and fireworks with uncanny and disastrous accuracy.

Del Lord directed this short for Paramount. With the downturn in independent comedy producers, the majors were producing their own, both to fill out programs and to serve as training grounds for their own technicians. This one soon gets out of hand, but it's good to see Miss Granger at work, as well as old hands like Harry Bowen, and Walter Brennan doing his stuttering act.

Hollywood made a lot of comedy shorts involving the military. And, in many cases, the stars of these shorts are utterly ridiculous as soldiers or sailors. The worst is probably "Great Guns" with Laurel & Hardy as Hardy is in his 50s and weighed about 350 pounds! In "Sailors Beware!" it's not quite that bad but Walter Catlett and rotund Eugene Pallette were both in their mid-40s! My advice is just turn off your brain and enjoy the films...that definitely worked with "Sailors Beware!".

Jonesy and Smitty (Pallette and Catlett) are both on leave along with a lot of other sailors. A gang of crooks is looking for a sailor with an anchor tattoo because they heard he has a lottery ticket worth $100,000....and they vow to steal it. But anchor tattoos are among the most common in the Navy and the gang keep beating up sailors and stripping them....looking for the tattoo! Well, Jonesy has one just like it and the lady gang member is very intent on ripping his clothes off....and, strangely, Jonesy wants nothing to do with it!

Apparently Catlett and Pallette made several shorts together but this is the only one I could find on YouTube. It's clever and funny despite a few dud gags here and there (especially the part where Pallette spits BBs)....but overall it's quite enjoyable.

Dorothy Granger with her group of thieves are out to get a winning lottery ticket at any cost from two sailors (Eugene Palette & Walter Catlett).

From pick-up to Eugene's near seduction to a riot on the Hollenbeck Park Lake is a slapstick gem that hits all the marks for hilarity.

Del Lord directs this Phil L. Ryan produced Paramount short, spiced with precode dialog and visuals.

Look for future Oscar winner Walter Brennan as a stuttering chauffeur in the gang.

Note: 1. Hollenbeck Park is the same location that Laurel & Hardy's MEN O'WAR was filmed 4 years earlier.

2. The Laurel & Hardy Cuckoo theme is used in the opening scene.

There were 6 Palette-Catlett Paramount shorts made and this is the only one I have been able to locate and screen.