The Extraordinary Seaman (1969, David Niven, Faye Dunaway, Alan Alda, Mickey Rooney) – Classic Movie Review 11,921

Director John Frankenheimer’s 1969 American comedy war film The Extraordinary Seaman stars David Niven, Faye Dunaway, Alan Alda and Mickey Rooney.

The notable Frankenheimer career hits troubled waters with this daft World War Two whimsy that leaves delightful talents like Niven, Dunaway, Alda and Rooney up the creek without so much as a paddle.

Niven plays Lieutenant Commander Finchhaven, the British Royal Navy gunboat captain who will not desert his abandoned vessel, the wreck of the gunboat HMS Curmudgeon, encountered by a stranded foursome of United States Navy sailors (Alda, Rooney, Jack Carter, Manu Tupou) in the wartime Pacific. The four sailors repair the ship, along with help from garage owner Jennifer Winslow (Faye Dunaway).

The Extraordinary Seaman is a major movie gone aground and presumably cut to ribbons by MGM to 80 minutes as a support feature, and even then including 10 minutes of stock documentary film. But, really, it is unsalvageable.

Frankenheimer said it was his least favourite of his films. It was the only movie he ever made that he considered ‘an absolute disaster from beginning to end’.

The four US Navy sailors are the accountant, Lieutenant G Morton Krim (Alda), the cook Oglethorpe (Rooney), the gunner’s mate Orville Toole (Carter), and the Cheyenne seaman C Lightfoot Star (Tupou).

Also in the cast are Juano Hernandez, Barry Kelley, Leonard O Smith, Richard Guizon, John Cochran and Jerry Fujikawa.

MGM bought the rights to Phillip Rock’s novel in 1967. He writes the screenplay with Hal Dresner.

The film was primarily shot in Yucatán and Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, and in Culver Studios, California, and Santa Barbara, California.

It is riskily divided into six sections named after the volumes of Winston Churchill’s The Second World War.

Sadly it is Mickey Rooney’s final film as actor for his heyday studio MGM.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 11,921

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Mickey Rooney in happier times in his heyday at MGM.