Destroyer (1943)

The Worst Film Ever

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

***SPOILERS*** One of the few and better WWII movies made during the conflict by Hollywood that minus the super patriotism and heroics so common in those films you can watch enjoy and appreciate even now almost 70 years after the war ended. Edward G.Robinson as 50 year old sea salt and WWI vet Steve "Boley" Boleslavski gives one of his finest performances that's so out of character of what we've seen of him that he should have gotten but didn't an Academy Award for it. In fact Robinson didn't even get nominated for one!The movie centers around this US Navy destroyer the USS John Paul Jones, effectively called Jonnie by its crew, which Boley served on in WWI. Having been sunk in the South Pacific by a Japanese submarine a second John Paul Jones was build that Boley as a shipyard welder help in building. Now commissioned and sent out to sea Boley did everything that he could to get assigned to it even though he was out of the US Navy for years. With the help of his friend and boat's Captain Lt. Commander Clark, Rigis Toomy, Boley got his wish. But as things soon turned it didn't turn out to be the great deal that he expected it would be.The story is really more of a love not war story about a man and his boat. "Destoryer" has Boley almost get drummed out of the navy in his incompetence as a sailor in living in the past, WWI, not in the present WWII in not realizing that things dramatically changed in naval warfare as well as ship construction. There's also the fact that Boley soon gets into serious trouble with the ships gunnery mate Mickey Donohue, Glenn Ford, who feels that the old man in his messing everything up is a pain in the butt to every sailor on the boat. It's when Mickey meets and falls in love with Boley's 22 year old daughter Mary, Marguerite Chapman, that his opinion towards Boley changes somewhat not not that much. The two end up slugging each other that almost has them both court martial-ed and thrown into the brig.***SPOILERS*** Sent off to the far off Aleutian Islands in the North Pacific in a non combat supporting role, as a mail delivery ship, it's in the fighting there where both Boley and his beloved destroyer the John Paul Jones finally redeemed themselves. Not in only surviving a Jap torpedo hit but with Boley's heroic help keeping the John Paul Jones from going under the waves! It's just then, as daylight or day break was about to dawned, the John Paul Jones ends up ramming the Jap submarine before it could surface and finish off the disabled ship with its deck guns! Tension packed final as Boley working against time with his hand picked crew including his fellow WWI vet and John Paul Jones the first shipmate Kansas Jackson, Edger Buchanan, keeping their ship form taking on water and sinking to the bottom of the freezing Barring Sea. Bearly alive, from what he went through, at the end Boley finally earned the respect of the ship's crew who at one time wanted nothing better then to throw him overboard.

First Rate for the period. A good patriotic Navy film, in the class with "Men of Honor" and Top Gun. Great depiction of sailors,Ships and the sea. As a U.S. Navy Veteran and "Tin-can-Sailor" an affectionate term for "Destroyer" Sailors, this shows the connection of the men and the Ship. The personality and the Valor of the Ship and her namesake and the men that make HER sail. To the sailor she is more than just steel that floats, she is Life; one lives, eats and sleeps the ship. If she don't float, we die. She takes us in harm's way and if we do it right, she brings us home. Home is the sailor, home from the sea. "Well done "Boli."

Not a bad little Columbia film from 1943; unheralded, but brisk and well made.EGR plays a retired naval officer now building ships during WW2. His old ship has been sunk and is being rebuilt. When it's done, he re-ups and gets assigned to the new incarnation of the USN destroyer, the John Paul Jones.Through a connection, he aces out Glenn Ford from his position, though Ford is far more qualified and up-to-date in his naval knowledge.EGR continues to irk everyone on the ship by riding them too hard and constantly babbling about the old JPJ. Finally, he strikes a fellow officer and is demoted and loses his position and must ask the re-instated Glenn Ford if he can even still serve on the JPJ. Ford doesn't like EGR, but says OK.The ship has a couple of test shake out runs where many things go wrong and the ship is finally assigned mail duty instead of the much desired combat duty. Tired of EGR and embarrassed by the ship, many men request a transfer off the JPJ until EGR corners them all and tells them the history of JPJ the man and his ship's battle with a British ship. The men are riveted by the tale of the bravery of the man and his crew who, against all odds, defeat the British ship as their own ship burns and sinks before which JPJ had yelled his immortal line to the British when asked if he was surrendering - "I have not yet begun to fight".The men stay on and find their ship in the middle of a battle with a Japanese submarine. The JPJ is torpedoed and is sinking and many of the man have abandoned ship as ordered. EGR asks permission to stay aboard to weld the damaged part of the ship....and they only have 2 hours before the Jap sub will surface and sink them for sure.Can he do it?Good male cast of characters- EGR Glenn Ford Edgar Buchanan Leo Gorcey Regis Toomey Edward Brophy Lloyd Bridges plus Marguerite Chapman as EGR's daughter.Leo Gorcey gets a good quote at a dance as he asks a girl to dance with him - "Hey, squirrel. Wanna twirl?"Edgar Buchanan at the same dance is asked by some woman what he will spend his paycheck on - 'Oh, I dunno. Some of it on beer. Some of it on women. The rest on something foolish, I guess'.Robinson tells his shipmates about the British in the Revolutionary War - 'Don't let anyone kid you. Those Limeys could fight!'And Leo Gorcey holds his own with EGR during the big JPJ story when EGR asks him to read the plaque that has the immortal line on it and Gorcey doesn't need to read it now and stares right up at the camera and EGR and quotes - "I have not yet begun to fight".Some good special effects in the film and snappy dialog. Well worth viewing.DESTROYER was issued on GOODTIMES HOME VIDEO in the 90s and wasn't easy to find then.

Edward G. Robinson cast's off in a rousing wartime tale of an untried destroyer crew pitted against the Japanese, and against their own ship. Robinson plays a dedicated machinist in a downright heroic role (for a change), and shows that he could lift this fairly routine combat epic out of the dull-drums -- almost on his own. The special effects and action sequences are first rate by the standards of the day, and overall the film has a good pace to it. It has been a few years since I have seen Destroyer, but the thing I best remember is Robinson relating the story of John Paul Jones and the Bon Homme Richard to the disheartened crew. Its corny and obvious, but he is so earnest that you practically feel like jumping in there to help him out.