Here Comes the Navy

Cagney was great as a stubborn smart aleck, and that is what the James Cagney had a great manner of getting the girl, whether it be Bette Davis in THE BRIDE CAME C.O.D. (1941) or Gloria Stuart in HERE COMES THE NAVY (1934).

In HERE COMES THE NAVY, Chesty O'Conner (Cagney) joins the navy simply to have a shot at a rematch brawl with naval officer Biff Martin (Pat O'Brien). On board, he wants to take O'Brien's girl who turns out to be his sister (Stuart). He befriends Droopy Mullins, a sidekick type splendidly played by Frank McHugh.

This was a delightful film, a must for fans of Cagney's humor. And for navy buffs who like to note the service between the world wars, as the Department of the Navy is cited as cooperating in this film.

Oh, and my wife reminds me to point out that there is a blimp in this picture. It is dated to that extent, but its themes and comedy are always applicable. (The blackface scene being the notable exception, but as such attitudes were very present in yesterday's Hollywood, we must bit our lips and let them pass. In this film, the actual African American characters look at Cagney in blackface as if he were goofy. They, too, let it pass.)

"That's my ship, the Arizona", says Pat O'Brien in the very first line of dialogue in this 1934 Warner Brothers feature. Indeed, much of this motion picture was filmed aboard the famous battleship that is now a national monument on the bottom of Pearl Harbor.

Another prominent feature of "Here Comes The Navy" is the USS Macon, the U.S. Navy's last dirigible. If the elderly battleship USS Arizona was a leftover from World War I, the USS Macon represented the cutting edge of technology in 1934, much as the Space Shuttle does today. The giant airship crashed into the Pacific Ocean less than a year after this film was produced, fortunately, with the loss of only two of her 100 crew members. Although the service continued to operate much smaller and less expensive non-rigid blimps for many years, the loss of the USS Macon put an end to the Navy's rigid airship program. There can be little doubt that many of the USS Macon's crewmen seen in this movie were still aboard at the time of the crash.

Of course, the principal feature of "Here Comes The Navy" is the crackling byplay between perennial rival/buddies James Cagney and Pat O'Brien, both of whom were at the top of their form here. As usual, Cagney plays the brash wise-guy while O'Brien is the steady, authority figure bent on channeling Cagney's energy into the right direction. It is a formula they were to repeat in several more movies, most famously in "Angels With Dirty Faces".

Caught between Cagney and O'Brien is Gloria Stewart. This was the same Gloria Stewart who would later be featured in the 1997 version of "Titanic". Stuart did a reasonable job here, even though she was inevitably upstaged by her two dynamic co-stars. But then, Cagney and O'Brien could easily steal scenes from anybody.

"Here Comes The Navy" is a treat for Cagney fans (and there are still plenty of those out there). It is equally a treat for history buffs. Originally intended as a showcase for the contemporary Navy, the movie is now a time capsule of the service in a bygone era.

With the birth of the production code, the fun pre-code frolics of Cagney and Joan Blondell were at an end. Thus Warner Brothers came up with a new dynamic screen team - James Cagney and Pat O'Brien. This is the first of the films they did together. Prior to the production code, O'Brien often played the same kind of roles that Cagney played - the fast-talking smart guy with big ideas and a big dose of attitude. Since you can't have two of these in the same picture, O'Brien was generally promoted to being the more traditionally respectable of the two in their films together, and such is the case here.

The film starts with construction worker Chesty O'Conner (James Cagney) and naval officer Biff Martin (Pat O'Brien) trading at first verbal barbs and then punches. Chesty gets fired from his job because of the time he takes off recovering from the fight, and decides to go another round with Biff. Unfortunately, Biff's ship has put out to sea, so Chesty thinks the solution is to join the navy and get assigned to Biff's ship. He actually does wind up on Biff's ship, but soon learns he can't take to punching out officers whenever the mood strikes him. To complicate matters, Chesty takes a shine to Biff's sister, Dorothy (Gloria Stuart), and this just inflames matters more as Biff wants his sister to have nothing to do with Chesty. Warner contract player Frank McHugh provides the comic relief as Droopy Mullins, Chesty's stalwart friend and shipmate.

The film works better than most made right after the production code, primarily because the teaming of Cagney and O'Brien worked so well. By turning down the volume a bit on O'Brien's screen sauciness and turning up the volume on Cagney's, the two play off of each other's dynamism perfectly. This film is also interesting for historical reasons - it was filmed on and around the U.S.S. Arizona, one of the ships that sank at Pearl Harbor seven years after this film was made.

Besides James Cagney and Pat O'Brien, there's also beautiful Gloria Stuart (63 years before her triumphant return to the screen in Titanic (1997)) as the love interest, and Frank McHugh providing comedy centered around his mother's false teeth. In a fight over a girl with Navy man O'Brien, Cagney is knocked out when his girl distracts him. And when O'Brien later steals his girl, Cagney is so angry he joins the Navy with the hope of getting even. Talk about holding grudges! After 3 months of basic training (shot on location at the Naval Training Station in San Diego, California), Cagney is assigned to the battleship U.S.S. Arizona, the ship O'Brien is on. The Navy allowed location shooting on the actual ship, which is the same one sunk at Pearl Harbor and is now in the harbor as a memorial. It's an impressive ship with unbelievable firepower and we see the big guns being loaded and fired in maneuvers. Meanwhile, Cagney had met and wooed Stuart, but she turned out to be O'Brien's sister! And O'Brien caused a rift, another reason for Cagney to get even with him. Because of a bad attitude problem, Cagney eventually is transferred to the dirigible U.S.S. Macon at Sunnyvale, California. Again, the actual airship is used and it is an awesome sight as it is pulled out of its hangar, dwarfing everything in view. As luck (and the script) would have it, the ship tries to land in windy weather but aborts, with O'Brien hanging on to a mooring line as it gains altitude. Cagney disobeys orders and climbs down the rope with a parachute to try to save the man he doesn't yet know is O'Brien.

Here Comes the Navy is a key film in the history of cinema. As it marks the first teaming of James Cagney and Pat O'Brien, that in itself is historic. For these two in my humble opinion are the inventors of the male buddy film. The only other rivals for that distinction are Edmund Lowe and Victor McLaglen when they did a series of films as Captain Flagg and Sergeant Quirt. Cagney and O'Brien were teamed for seven years by Warner Brothers in various parts.

This also is James Cagney's first film in any of our Armed Services. He's the usual fresh mouthed Cagney who as a civilian runs afoul of CPO Pat O'Brien over a woman played by Dorothy Tree. Then Cagney joins the Navy and there's O'Brien waiting for him. And O'Brien has a sister, Gloria Stuart who Cagney falls for.

But of course when Warner Brothers had the good idea of shooting this movie at the San Diego Naval Station, they had no idea that they would be shooting on what became a national shrine. In fact it's mentioned several times that both O'Brien and Cagney are assigned to the battleship, U.S.S. Arizona. Shortly after this film was made the Arizona and the rest of the Pacific Fleet moved to Honolulu and on December 7, 1941 the Arizona became a part of history. A whole lot of the crew of the Arizona served as extras in Here Comes the Navy, so a lot of the faces you see are probably at the bottom of Pearl Harbor in the Arizona.

Knowing that I find it incredible that Here Comes the Navy has never made it to VHS or DVD. Hopefully that will be rectified soon.