Mister Roberts

I recently saw "Mister Roberts" for the first time in a theater, part of a double-bill with "Twelve Angry Men". The latter is one of my all-time favorite movies, but I've always had reservations about "Mister Roberts", in large part, I think, because I'd always seen it in pan-and-scan on AMC instead of the original CinemaScope perspective of the original. Well, even on a movie screen, I think some of the scenes had to be chopped (or Mervyn LeRoy just liked including William Powell's shoe in a screen-shot, but not the rest of him) but I enjoyed this movie much more in a theater than on a TV screen. For one small example, I'd never noticed the detail of the warships passing by during the opening credits before.

The story of "Mister Roberts" is a bit melodramatic for my taste -- after all, it started out on Broadway -- but it doesn't matter because you have five huge headliners to carry it, all at different stages of their careers -- William Powell in his last feature film; James Cagney, James Fonda, and Ward Bond in their mid-career phases (though Bond would be cut down too young in 1960); and Jack Lemmon in practically his first movie. There is an outstanding photo of these five actors singing together accompanied by Cagney's guitar in the photo gallery. Anyway, Mister Roberts is a college-grad who felt a duty to be involved in WWII, but who had the bad luck to be assigned to a cargo ship that is never involved in combat duty. What's worse, the commanding officer is a petty Merchant Marine who got in the Navy because they needed anyone they could get, and he resents Mister Roberts and anyone else who he thinks looks down on him. Roberts shares a room with Ensign Pulver, not exactly a coward but someone who'd be happy to go through the entire war without meeting his Captain. The ship's surgeon is played by William Powell with the same wit and facile mastery that he brought to the "The Thin Man" series decades earlier; but you can tell he's not Nick Charles because of his gray hair. Finally, the great Ward Bond is the top noncom in the cargo hold.

The movie depends on a lot of stereotypes that feel like crutches to me -- sailors ogling women, sailors getting drunk, sailors going nuts on liberty, etc. The high points of the action involve the interaction of the headliners, or their solo moments. Jack Lemmon's outstanding (and Oscar-winning) performance established him as an up and coming star, and presaged his great work in "The Apartment", "Some Like it Hot", "The Days of Wine and Roses", and the other masterpieces of his "Early" period. The final scene is one of the best in Lemmon's career.

I strongly recommend you find a way to see "Mister Roberts" in widescreen format. This is a movie, like "Lawrence of Arabia" or "Anastasia", that is just ruined when presented full-screen.

"Mister Roberts," released in 1955 and directed by John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy, is a great film adaptation of the hit Broadway play by Thomas Heggen and Joshua Logan. Lieutenant Douglas Roberts (Henry Fonda), a cargo officer stationed on the weary cargo ship the USS Reluctant in the spring of 1945, is BORED. Roberts yearns for a transfer to a combat vessel. The problem is, he needs the approval of the captain (James Cagney), and the captain, though obligated to send Roberts' requests for transfer as written, exercises his discretion to stamp every letter "disapproved". The brass would never go over the head of a captain who disapproves of a transfer. The captain does this not because he realizes Roberts' importance to the ship, but instead because he is a small mean petty man.

The captain grew up poor and this did not teach him empathy for his fellow man when he climbed out of poverty and became an officer. Instead he just learned to be the ultimate bully. He denies the crew privileges because he can, but he is always interested in schmoozing superior officers whom he deems as important. In the words of "Philadelphia Story", In spite of the fact that somebody's up from the bottom, he can still be quite a heel. "

The crew idolizes Roberts because he is constantly antagonizing their tormenter. But then one day the Captain holds the crew's much deserved and much needed liberty for ransom - Roberts has to stop writing requests for transfers and act like he is toadying to the captain from now on and moreso keep this arrangement secret - and Roberts has to choose.

Because the film is about boredom during wartime, it would be easy for this film to be - well - boring, but to its credit it is not. This is because of all of the small scenes involving the four leads and the outstanding cast. Henry Fonda starred as Mr. Roberts onstage, and it is said he actually directed parts of it after John Ford walked off. William Powell makes his last film appearance as the ship's surgeon, "Doc", and he has some scenes that have that wily and humorous Powell greatness while delivering words of wisdom or a recipe for fake Scotch. Jack Lemmon won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Ensign Pulver, a slimy little weasel and wannabe womanizer who has potential.

I'd recommend this even if you are not particularly fond of war films - I'm not and I enjoyed it a great deal.

I was back from combat in Europe when I saw "Mr. Roberts" on the stage. The dialogue rang true; it had the flavor of the rough speech of military men. This was lacking in the cleaned-up film version. On the stage, the men of The Reluctant often hinted at scatological tidbits with which all servicemen were familiar, and the audience had a lot of former seamen and soldiers in it, accompanied by their dates. I often heard male laughter, then whispering which was followed by female laughter. One more thing: The scenes with drunken sailors were believable in the stage production - not so in the film. Whoever did the voice coaching for the movie had no idea of how drunks talk. Having said all of this, I must add that I enjoyed the movie. Watching the four master actors - Fonda, Powell, Cagney and Lemmon - was pure delight. Jack Lemmon received an Oscar for his portrayal of Ensign Pulver in the film and Larry Blyden was just as good in the stage part.

This is the story of how the human spirit is threatened not only by the brutality of war but also, in more subtle ways, by boredom and bureacracy as well as the egos of small-minded people.

Fonda and Cagney are wonderful as the battling duo who fight over the morale of the ship's crew. Human sacrifice comes in many forms, and Fonda's character demonstrates them all through the course of the film.

Mixing comedy with genuine issues of human dignity, the film is a true classic.

'Mister Roberts' is one of two movies that I sometimes name as my all-time favorite movies. The other is 'The Adventures of Robin Hood' with Errol Flynn. I definitely believe that this is one of Henry Fonda's finest roles.

When my now nineteen year old nephew was younger, he would ask to watch my copy of 'Mister Roberts' on VHS just for the hilarious scene where Pulver blows up the laundry and the ship starts to fill up with soap suds. I have a copy of the play which includes pictures from when Fonda played the role of Doug Roberts on stage, and there are some differences from the play, but those differences certainly work in this movie.

I can't imagine better casting for any of these parts--

Henry Fonda as Doug Roberts

Jack Lemmon as Ensign Pulver

Ward Bond as Dowdy

William Powell as Doc

This is an excellent story of a man who yearns to serve in a war, but yet not to be a hero. He just wants to do his part, and he thinks that in order for his part to be important he has to be in combat. It takes him a while, and a few lectures from Doc, to realize that what he and the crew on the 'bucket' on which they serve do a necessary and important job even as they sail from boredom to tedium and back again, as Roberts says in his letter to Pulver in one of the movie's last scenes. The men are bored, and they can't stand their captain; and during the scene where the captain calls them to their battle stations after finding his special palm tree missing most of them aren't even sure where their battle stations are! The character of Doc has never even seen a battleship and he's in the navy. The entire movie is worth just the scenes of the crew returning from liberty, the making of the scotch, and the soap suds incident.

For a while when I was up at Northern Arizona University I had these lines from the opening scene as part of my answering machine message:

"Now here this. Now here this. Revelry. I repeat...revelry! Attention all hands..."

I recommend this movie very highly and rate it nine out of ten stars!