Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

VividSimon Simply Perfect

Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

edcasanova2003 I'd heard about this since I was a kid!The scenes aboard Arizona, the US Pacific battle Fleet at sea!The plot is lousy but entertaining enough to hold you between those amazing scenes!

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.

qsilver-2 About half way through the movie you see the U S Pacific fleet (San Diego based at the time in 1934)on Sea Maneuvers out by Santa Catalina Island, California. This is the only motion picture footage of the "Arizona" firing her 14 inch live rounds (She is the first of several Battleships firing from left to right). Footage was taken by the U S S "Macon", Navy Airship at the time. The airship was caught in a storm about a year later very close to where they were filming and fell from the sky. About 250 of the sailors who were aboard the "Arizona" at the time of the film were also on deck December 7, 1941 when the Empire of Japan attacked the ship inside Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Notice the sleeping quarters (hammocks) for the sailors at that time.

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.