GIVE ME A SAILOR (Paramount, 1938), directed by Elliott Nugent, is a minor comedy with notable casting leads of Martha Raye, Bob Hope and Betty Grable. Based on an play by Anne Nichols, the plot sounds very much like a Cinderella story with Raye playing an ugly ducking competing with her attractive sister (Grable).
The slight plot finds sailor brothers, Jim (Bob Hope) and Walter Brewster (Jack Whiting) going on shore leave in San Francisco where Walter intends on proposing marriage to Nancy Larkin (Betty Grable), his childhood sweetheart, who's quite popular with the other fellas. It so happens that Jim wants to marry Nancy as well. For ten years Jim has plotted schemes with Nancy's unattractive sister, Letty (Martha Raye), by arranging her to marry Walter, whom she has loved since childhood. During the course of the story, Letty sneaks away to be alone with Walter in Paradise Valley by hiding in the trunk of his car, only to have her scheme backfire when Jim becomes the driver instead and ends up alone with him. Due to unexpected circumstances, Letty's accidental photographed legs were submitted by her cousin, Meryl (Emerson Treacy) to a contest that wins, turning Letty from homely household cook to a popular celebrity, much to the chagrin of Nancy, who finds Walter has changed his affections from her to Letty. As Jim's schemes to get Walter married to Letty, Letty begins to have second thoughts. Other members of the cast include: J.C. Nugent (Mr. Larkin); Clarence Kolb (Captain Tallant); Irving Bacon (The Film Processor); Eddie Kane, among others.
On the musical soundtrack by Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger, songs include: "The U.S.A. and You" (sung by sailors); "What Goes On Here in My Heart?" (sung by Betty Grable and Jack Whiting, followed by a slight dance); "A Little Kiss" (sung by Martha Raye); "A Little Kiss" (reprise by Raye); and "The U.S.A. and You" (instrumentally played by parade band). Though the songs are okay, they are mostly unmemorable and forgotten.
At first, GIVE ME A SAILOR starts off like a nautical musical in the tradition of BORN TO DANCE (MGM, 1936) with singing sailors on board ship. Once the sailor brothers (Hope and Whiting) go on shore leave to be with their gals, they spend much of the story in civilian clothes with little references about their ranks. With both Hope and Grable not major star attractions as of yet, it's most interesting seeing these two together in the same movie. Their previous film, COLLEGE SWING (1938), also with Raye, had the more apart than together. Yet, GIVE ME A SAILOR belongs very much to Martha Raye. Aside from her antics answering telephone calls for her sister, chasing Ethel May Brewster (Bonnie Jean Churchill), a bratty child, around the kitchen, getting her face trapped in a clay pack that hardens, and hiding under the bed to avoid scandal of being found inside the Inn bedroom alone with Jim (Hope), she also gets her very rare moments of sympathy when finding herself rejected, along with later becoming glamorous in fur coats, expensive clothes, jewelry and beauty parlor hairstyle. While Raye's character got much publicity about her legs here, it would be Betty Grable a few years later who would be known for having her "million dollar legs." As much as Raye would have more screen time with Hope than with other members in the cast, they have little opportunity together showing how funny they can be as a team. However, they did have better luck getting some belly laughs in their final film together of NEVER SAY DIE (1939).
Once broadcast regularly on the late show in the seventies before shifting to public television in the 1980s. GIVE ME A SAILOR has become available on both video and DVD formats in later years. One of its known cable television showings to GIVE ME A SAILOR has turned up on Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: August 30, 2014). (*** Bells)
