We Joined the Navy * (1962, Kenneth More, Lloyd Nolan, Mischa Auer, Derek Fowlds, Joan O’Brien, Denise Warren) – Classic Movie Review 9274

Kenneth More, Jeremy Lloyd, Dinsdale Landen and Derek Fowlds play four sailors who embroil themselves in political nonsense in the Mediterranean in director Wendy Toye’s soggy 1962 comedy We Joined the Navy, which is very tame and quickly outstays its welcome.

Kenneth More adds a bit of substance to the film as the English lieutenant commander, ‘Bodger’ Badger, who is sent with three problem midshipmen as exchange officers to the flagship of the US Sixth Fleet and helps American admiral Ryan (Lloyd Nolan)’s naval forces to free a captive.

We Joined the Navy is dated and old-fashioned even in 1962, though the appeal of the vintage cast adds definite allure, particularly in retrospect. It also stars Mischa Auer, Derek Fowlds, Joan O’Brien, and Denise Warren. Dirk Bogarde puts in a guest spot as Dr Simon Sparrow, from Doctor in the House (1954), Doctor at Large (1957) and the other Doctor films.

The screenplay by Arthur Dales [Howard Dimsdale] is based on the novel by John Winton, a former Royal Navy lieutenant commander.

Also in the cast are Jeremy Lloyd, Dinsdale Landen, John le Mesurier, Laurence Naismith, Kenneth Griffith, Sidney James, Michael Bentine, Walter Fitzgerald, Andrew Cruickshank, Lally Bowers, Esma Cannon, Ronald Leigh Hunt, Arthur Lovegrove, Paul Maxwell, John Phillips, Nicholas Stuart, Brian Wilde, Graham Crowden, Michael Kilgarriff, Neil McCarthy, Richard Vernon, David Warner, Alexis Kanner, Robin Hawdon, Warren Mitchell, Marie France, Sean Kelly, Tutte Lemkow, Robert Nichols, Wanda Ventham, Andrew Sachs, Ian Selby and Rodney Bewes as recruitment interviewee (uncredited).

Derek Fowlds took over as Mr Derek (1969-1973) from Rodney Bewes as Mr Rodney (1968), straight man to the children’s puppet Basil Brush on the TV series The Basil Brush Show. Bewes’s last appearance was in Fowlds’s TV series Heartbeat (2009)

RIP Rodney Bewes (1937–2017), who died on 21 November 2017, aged 79.

RIP Derek Fowlds (1937–2020), who died on 17 January 2020, aged 82.

We Joined the Navy is directed by Wendy Toye, runs 109 minutes, is made by Associated British Picture Corporation and Angel Productions, is released by Warner-Pathé Distributors (1962) (UK), is written by Arthur Dales [Howard Dimsdale], is shot in Eastmancolor by Otto Heller, is produced by Daniel M Angel and Vivian A Cox (associate producer), is scored by Ron Grainer and is designed by John Howell.

It is the uncredited cinema movie debut of David Warner (as sailor painting ship).

It is shot in Villefranche-sur-Mer, near Nice and Monaco, at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, and on board USS Springfield, as well as Associated British Picture Corporation Elstree Studios.

A Region 2 DVD was released by Network on 16 February 2015.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9274

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