The Fleet's In (1942)

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Casey Kirby (William Holden) is a nice guy sailor who is very, very slow with women. However, after a female starlet grabs him and kisses him as part of a publicity stunt, the other sailors think he's some sort of stud. Later, the sailors all have a bet that he'll be able to get a kiss from a pretty singer called 'the Countess' (Dorothy Lamour). However, Casey doesn't care about the bet and behaves like a gentleman when he goes out on a date with the Countess. However, when her friend Bessie (Betty Hutton) finds out about the bet, she tells the Countess who becomes furious with Casey--even though Casey's done nothing wrong nor did he have any evil intentions. What's to become of Casey and the Countess? Will he kiss her and will they fall in love after all?While the plot to this film is agreeable fluff, the film is hindered by being too packed full of songs. Every time the plot starts gaining momentum, there are several songs to derail the movie. Now the songs might have worked if it wasn't for the fact that they were all inserted in as production numbers and were naturally integrated into the film-- but they weren't. It also didn't help that Lamour's character went from being a nice lady to an angry jerk like the drop of a hat! On top of that the film is hindered by having Betty Hutton--a very brash and obnoxious actress whose appeal I have never understood!! Subtle, she ain't! And, practically every time she delivered a line, she screamed it!! It also didn't help that her character was also so broadly written that I practically hated every scene in which she appeared! Had they killed Hutton and eliminated a few songs, the movie would have been a cute little romantic comedy. But, as it is, it's not one of Holden's finer moments. In fact, I'd probably skip this one.By the way, the only actor in this film who actually came off well was Holden. He was agreeable and pleasant--unlike practically everyone else.

This is an awful film. Usually, the thin thread of a musical comedy plot links up with an Astaire, a Ginger, an Eleanor Powell, an Alice Faye. This one, with a plot even more gossamer than most, leads to some excruciating exhibitions of non-talent. The harmonica sequence and the parody ballroom dance performance are radically unfunny. Holden has nothing to do but be yanked like a puppet on the strings of Dorothy's sudden changes of mind. She plays a profoundly self-interested performer who, of course, falls in love with the puppet. The other women -- the raucous Hutton and the over the top Dailey play insulting stereotypes. As, of course, the rest of the sailors are. But some good sailor flicks do exist -- 'Follow the Fleet' and 'On the Town' for example. We do get to see Helen O'Connell, who towers over Dorsey and Eberly, and do, too briefly, hear Jimmy on the clarinet. He was one of the best clarinet players in an era that featured Goodman, Shaw, and Barney Bigard. At one point, Jimmy's band appears in a sudden pavilion on the street below Dorothy's aerie. How'd they get there? At the end, the four couples are all in a taxi getting married. How'd they get there? The film, made before Pearl Harbor, was already an anachronism when it was released (with Holden believing that his enlistment was just about up just as his battle wagon heads for Pearl). Robert Osborne on TCM said that he'd been trying for years to get the film on TCM. Never would have been too soon.

This is a rather typical romantic, musical comedy with a good number of Paramount's stars, established or on the ascend -- Dorothy Lamour, Betty Hutton, Eddie Bracken, William Holden. The plot barely merits description, a bit of froth like those of the Astaire-Rogers musicals.Okay. The fleet arrives in San Francisco. Bets are made on whether a shy Quartermaster, Holden, can get the notorious Ice Princess who sings at Swingland, Lamour, to kiss him. Arrangements are made for them to meet and they fall in love, but every time Holden tries to take the relationship a step farther, somebody tells her more about the details of the bet and she misunderstands Holden's intentions.Holden is boyishly handsome. Lamour is a glamorous and sexy mezzo-soprano. Betty Hutton is on afterburners throughout and provides much in the way of barbaric humor, but not nearly as silly as some of the vaudeville numbers we witness. Maybe the most amusing performance comes from the ordinarily irritable and fustian Leif Erickson trying to be happy-go-lucky. Every time he laughs and make a wisecrack I expect him to shatter and fall to the floor like a broken ice sculpture.What raises this musical effort above the average is the introduction of two tunes that were to enter the Great American Songbook, both with tunes written by the director and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. "Tangerine" is memorable as a puncturing of female vanity. "I Remember You" is a wistful love song that reappears from time to time. Mercer was a talented guy with a face that, with only a few daubs of make up, could easily have been turned into a clown's. Memorable tunes seem to turn up in unlikely venues. "I'll Remember April" is from an Abbott and Costello movie, "Star Eyes" from a Red Skelton comedy.I didn't find the plot so enthralling but, as with Astaire and Rogers, it must be taken lightly, I guess. Just let your mind drift. It's only a movie.

This was one of Paramount's biggest grossers of 1942, and it gave Betty Hutton the chance of a lifetime. She is a powerhouse here with great chemistry with her co-star, Eddie Bracken. They were to go on to greater heights in MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK. It's almost everything the audiences of wartime 1942 wanted: bright and bouncy music done by the top talent of the day, a star, Dorothy Lamour, who never looked better, and a silly escapist plot to lighten one's mood. The only drawback: it was filmed in black-and-white, when it screamed for Technicolor. Still, this is a musical that should be on DVD and NOW! What's not to sell? It has a young William Holden, Dorothy Lsmour, Betty Hutton's dynamics, one of the top Big Bands, Jimmy Dorsey, and the singing talents of Bob Eberle and Helen O'Connell. Priceless nostalgia.