You Know What Sailors Are

This movie is about my age...we both came out in 1954.

It was the height of the cold war, and the possibility of mutual annihilation by the West and East was there. It would not be laid to rest until it nearly culminated eight years later with the mushroom clouds of the Cuban Missile Crisis. And shortly after that came the ultimate "black comedy" about the period, "Dr. Strangelove". But this film came earlier, in a slightly more hopeful period. Stalin had died a year before, so the Soviet Union looked a little less threatening. Not much, but a little. The invasion of Hungary and the crushing of its revolution in 1956 ended that image.

The hope in this film is based on one concept - suppose the Russians suddenly believed that their missiles were worthless due to some new weapon. In this film it is a device that looks like a tricycle with three brass balls connected by a broken umbrella frame. Actually it is precisely that - a piece of junk thrown together by two sailors as part of a lark, and attached to their warship. Naturally it excites the interest of the Russians. It also intrigues Akim Tamiroff, the President of the country that the British warship is visiting. He manages to purloin it (the sailors can't do much about it - after all it is not actually real naval equipment). Tamiroff is afraid that a Russian backed neighboring country may take over his because of their missiles. His country has none. He does have Martin Miller, a kindly, eccentric physicist who examines the device and pronounces it useless. But he and Tamiroff note the Russian interest in it - and decide to take advantage of it. And by a skillful bit of a scam, they convince the Russians and the neighboring country that atomic missiles are useless against the new device.

It is a charming little comedy, with bits of in-jokes (Tamiroff and Miller begin a conversation with the former saying, "Since you don't understand my language, we'll communicate in pidgin English."). It should be revived, to remind us of what we feared the most, and what we wished to end as though it were all a bad dream.

It is clear that the Rank Organisation weren't bothered to spend much on this film bearing in mind that it looked as if it had been shot almost completely inside Pinewood studios.I don't know if it was funny at the time it was released,it certainly isn't funny now.Akim Tamiroff,clearly in the cast to add some clout at the American box office,is always entertaining.However Donald Sinden is poor.I had never heard of Sarah Lawson,and on the basis of her performance,little wonder.Bill Kerr is comic support for Sinden.Whilst he is passable it would have helped if someone of a bit more comic stature had played his part.Sinden would be far better in the Doctor films which would start the same year.

This movie was a great surprise! It has comedy & a good plot that unfolds unexpectedly. All in all, it's a quality production.

In the process it quietly cuts a satirical response to the layers of bureaucracy in most if not all countries of the world, in a very entertaining way! I watched it at 4.30am on Australia's Channel 2 ABC TV, while a government of the rich & powerful, soon to be a government no more it seems, is about to host a function for the even more rich & powerful! With all the appropriate fencing & prestige advantageous for themselves, announced in sensationalism & with more propaganda, almost as if an embodiment of "the emperor with no clothes" brought to life. With all the propaganda they have used to keep themselves rich in… while cutting the budgets of this TV channel I watched this on a day ago.

Yet another comment posted indicates this movie is not easily available elsewhere! "998" would be right up the alley of the rich & powerful personnel of international bureaucracies & media who seek to control the world! Indian doctors too are immediately suspect it seems. But I see it almost every night on the news. In our "Global Village" UNJUSTLY torn apart by the powerful & prestigious! As surely as in the UNTOLD stories I have gained just a feather of insight into! In the meanwhile, you will be entertained by some clever & thoughtful comic naval drama, 50-odd years old, yet ahead of its time by my reckoning! Ships ahoy, me hearties! And may ye have fairweathers on ye adventures though there be no official pirates in this! As the son of a sailor, me hearties, a 9 out of 10, as ye walk the plank according to your interests & convictions.

For sometimes, the sharks on board are worse than those in the water!

Somehow this wound up as the second half of a double bill. I was thirteen, and never forgot it. It is a hoot! A fast-paced farce, offering the very best kind of British film humor, which I say is great to begin with. Highly recommended.

I watched the film "You Know What Sailors Are" on a Sunday after the Formula One race on 23 June 2002. The film is about a man who serves as a lieutant who goes on a drinking spree and get drunk. He with some of his friends strangely picks up a odd shaped 3 brass balls and a pram and welds them to the Algarian ship. The man then said that the odd object is called 998 and is a advanced spy radar. This then leads him in trouble with the Navy, Algarian president who later uses the 998 to sell to countries to make money. Overall it is a brilliant and enjoyable film, yes it was made in 1954 but a real classic!