The trans-Atlantic race is on between the two great ocean liners, the Colossal and the Gigantic. On board the Gigantic (or is it the Colossal? Not even all of the passengers are sure) is an assortment of characters who present us with a sort of variety show over the course of the voyage:
- W.C. Fields, ship's owner. He stops on the way to the pier for a game of golf ("Stand clear, keep your eye on the ball," he tells his large team of caddies) and so has to catch up with the ship by flying in on his mini-helicopter. He's nuts. He has a daughter...
- Martha Raye: According to pop Fields, "She's an unfortunate girl
.Seven years ago, she crashed an aeroplane in a mirror factory. Broke 9,831 mirrors."
- Bob Hope: A radio announcer broadcasting updates on the race, he is accompanied on the journey by his three ex-wives, who intend to prevent prospective wife number four from cutting into their alimony checks ("She can't chisel me down to any 25%....").
- Dorothy Lamour, who has second thoughts about becoming that fourth wife when she meets
- Leif Erickson, handsome and brilliant young engineer who has designed the special propulsion system for the ship.
- Shirley Ross, one of the ex-wives. She and Hope get to chatting and can't quite remember why they ever divorced in the first place.
The plot is an uneven mishmash, but some good songs stand out. Lamour sings "You Took the Words Right Out of My Heart," a lovely ballad. Raye does one called, "Mama, That Moon Is Here Again," which builds into a wild acrobatic dance in which sailors toss Martha all around the deck. The performance by Hope and Ross of "Thanks for the Memory" is truly excellent—it's a bittersweet song that we all know and yet it actually means something in its context of two old lovers hashing over regrets and falling back in love. It's a wonderfully touching and low key performance.
In between these highlights is a lot of nonsense, some of it amusing. The plot doesn't exactly buzz along—it stops and starts too much before ultimately drawing to a rather hasty resolution at the end of the voyage. It is kind of like of a big broadcast, a radio all star variety program, I suppose. Taken as a whole, it's really not that great a picture—but it's certainly worth seeing for the sake of its numerous highlights.
