Here Comes the Navy
Here Comes the Navy
NR | 21 July 1934 (USA)
Here Comes the Navy Trailers

A cocky guy joins the Navy for the wrong reason but finds romance and twice is cited for heroism.

Reviews
Perry Kate Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Executscan Expected more
Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.
AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Robert J. Maxwell This is more fun than you might expect. Not the romance, which is dull and familiar. A swabbie (Cagney) falls for the daughter of a Chief Boatswain's Mate (O'Brien) and the two guys hate each other. They always seem to be stationed together. And Cagney's character is equally familiar -- the tough, selfish cynic who joins the Navy on a dare and finds himself stuck. He proves himself a hero, of course, as all these characters do, as Cagney himself was to do a few years later in "The Fighting 69th." That's all boring. What's fun and interesting are the locations. Usually a story like this is shot on relatively cheap cardboard sets with some inserted footage of Navy ships. See "Follow the Fleet", inter alia, for an example.Here, though, as other commentators have pointed out, the shooting was done on the decks of the real USS Arizona and there is considerable footage of the dirigible Macon, which was housed at Moffet Field near Palo Alto, California. The monstrous hangars are still there.The first time Cagney demonstrates his altruism is while the Arizona is on fleet maneuvers off San Diego. It's genuine heroism too. A powder bag leaks and a fire threatens the entire turret. Cagney throws himself on the burning powder to smother it. There was a similar explosion in the turret of the battleship USS Iowa in 1989 that damaged much of the turret and killed 47 crewmen. (The Navy blamed it on a homosexual spat.) I may be biased because I was on a ship that took part in fleet maneuvers off San Diego too. I was a lowly lookout with no real responsibility and enjoyed every minute of watching guns go off in the sunshine. My ship, the Coast Guard Cutter Gresham, was supposed to track a submarine on sonar but couldn't find the submarine in the first place so the exercise was a flop. I won't bother to describe the farce that followed the announcement of "Air action, port!" Where was I? I wish someone would discretely flap a napkin at me when I got off topic like that. I'd do as much for you. Anyway, the second time Cagney indulges in heroics is a charm. He gets the girl, saves O'Brien, and wins another medal, I guess.Cagney is his usual bouncy self, sneering and ready to bop everybody on the schnozz. O'Brien is reliable and unexciting. Gloria Stuart, who passed on recently, is less than inspiring. Frank McHugh lends solid support. I could hardly believe it when I saw Bill Elliot as a Navy officer. Ten years later he would make a series of cheap Westerns and serials as "Wild Bill Elliot," one of my faves when I was a kid.At any rate, and for whatever reason, I expected to be rather more bored than I was. Nice crisp photography.
froberts73 First of all, tell Mr. Guttman to spell Ms. Stuart's name correctly. At any rate, she was around the water in "Here Comes the Navy" and in it in "Titanic." But the Navy pic is fun thanks mostly to part of WB's team of Irishers. Cagney, O'Brien, McHugh all provided plenty of enjoyment in that decade.As has been pointed out, "Here Comes the Navy" is fascinating history. You get a chill when you realize the Arizona was the ship sunk at Pearl Harbor, and when you realize that the Macon was a history maker.The (all white) Navy was very well represented in this flick, but its raison d'etre for it was just what the moviegoers of that time expected - sharp, crackling dialog between Cagney and O'Brien. It is Cagney's pic. No one can upstage that ball of fire.So, if you want to have fun, enjoy some nostalgia, get involved with some history, get your paws on "Here Comes the Navy."I'm an old Army man but, anchors aweigh. A couple tons, I imagine.
bkoganbing 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.
MartinHafer This review is so glowing because this film is one of the most important films, historically speaking, I have ever seen. While it is yet another Jimmy Cagney film in many ways, it shocked me when I saw that the film was set aboard the USS Arizona--the famous ship that was completely destroyed with most of its crew at Pearl Harbor just a few years later. Seeing Cagney and crew walking about this doomed ship is a rare opportunity to see the ship that still rests at the bottom of Pearl.Later, to my utter amazement, the USS Macon (one of the US Navy's dirigibles) makes an appearance as well! This huge airship was to be destroyed in a storm only a year later, and once again the real ship was used in parts of the film. This is once again an amazing opportunity to see the ship.So, combining the two rare opportunities with a pretty decent Cagney film gives you a film well-worth seeing. For those who don't care about the historical aspects of the film, I give it a 7--it's still pretty good and worth a look.