Salt Water Shemp

 

 (ebay)

SALTWATER TAFFY-1933-Elmer Waggonbottom (Jack Haley) and Wibur the kleptomaniac (Shemp Howard) are 2 near-do wells who accidentally join the navy and get in trouble with the CP0 (Lionel Stander). It's fairly a amusing and only about 20 minutes long. A rifle routine could have influenced the famous Abbott & Costello routine but both were probably taken from vaudeville. Director Ray McCarey was the brother of director Leo McCarey, who directed The Marx Brothers in DUCK SOUP the same year.

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Passing Parade

 

 (flickchart)

JOHN NESBITT'S PASSING PARADE-1944-"Return From Nowhere". In this story, traumatized seaman Alan Blank (Don DeFore) loses a sum of money he hoped to buy a farm with. He cracks up and is put in a hospital. His friend Jack (Donald Curtis) relates the story to a doctor (Morris Ankrum). Using fried eggs and bacon, a jazz record and a kind of dream therapy,  the doc figures out what's ailing Alan and helps cure him. At the beginning and end Peter Cushing is shown in a scene from another movie!

 “The Passing Parade” was a popular radio show written and narrated by John Nesbitt (the grandson of Edwin Booth). Beginning in 1938 MGM produced a series with Nesbitt as writer/narrator. 46 shorts were produced, the last in 1949.

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Let's Go Navy

LET'S GO NAVY-1951-In this outing Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Huntz Huntz) are robbed at gun point of some money they planned to give to charity. Since the two robbers (Tom Neal and Richard Benedict) were dressed as sailors "the boys" decide to join the navy and find them! Allen Jenkins is their CPO who is thrown overboard several times because of Sach's idiocy. Jonathan Hale is the captain. There's a lot of Abbott & Costello type gags including giving the captain a bar of soap instead of cheese and shell game routine (featuring Frank Jenks). When they land on a tropical island someone named Charlita shows up as Princess Papoola. She was in BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA the next year. Billy Benedict is Whitey, Buddy Gorman is Butch and David Gorcey is Chuck.

Unfortunately there's not enough Louie Dumbrosky (Bernard Gorcey). Directed by William Beaudine. This is the only credit for screenwriter Max Adams (!). This would be Buddy Gorman's last appearance as Butch. Bennie Barlett would rejoin the gang for the next entry. Leo Gorcey's manager Jan Grippo also exited as producer after this one.

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No, It's Not!

EVERYTHING'S DUCKY-1961-Two dumb sailors (Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett) who are stationed in the desert are assigned the task of freeing the former pet duck of a deceased scientist. It turns out the duck can talk so they try to find a way to make money off it but this only leads to trouble when the duck (named Scuttlebutt) gets drunk! Scuttlebutt might also hold the secret to the dead doctor's missile experiments. The Navy wants to remove the duck's brain and the two spend the rest of the movie protecting him.

It's all pretty silly and a romantic sub-plot really slows things down. Perhaps Columbia Pictures thought they were creating a new Abbott & Costello but we don't even get Brown & Carney. Speaking of A & C, Gordon Jones (Mike The Cop on their TV show) has a supporting role as a superior officer. Roland Winters is their captain and Jackie Cooper has one scene as a psychiatrist. Also with Richard Deacon, singer Joanie Sommers (whose voice seems to be dubbed...??), Elizabeth Macrae and Alvy Moore.

It was the first full length feature for director Don Taylor after a lot of TV shows. Hackett and Rooney were teamed a year later in IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD. Of course years later Hackett portrayed Lou Costello in the terrible TV movie BUD AND LOU...

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