Sea Devils (1937)

A different way of telling a story

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Had Sea Devils been done over at Warner Brothers, this film would have found an honored place in the Cagney/O'Brien buddy films. As it was done at RKO we have the Victor McLaglen/Preston Foster combination doing parts that fit O'Brien and Cagney like a glove. This was the kind of film that might have prospered better under John Ford. Ford had directed McLaglen and Foster in The Informer also for RKO, a film a lot more serious in subject matter.McLaglen is playing cupid here. His daughter is Ida Lupino and he's a much decorated Chief Petty Officer in the Coast Guard. He's got both Preston Foster and Donald Woods courting her. Foster is cut a bit too much from the same cloth that produced McLaglen and he doesn't want to see Lupino end up with him. Vic much prefers Woods who is studying for officer candidate's school.McLaglen abuses his rank to pick on Foster and finally Foster and he have it out. The only problem is that they tangle while on ice breaker duty and Woods is seriously injured while they're brawling. It results in court martial, but both get a chance to redeem themselves.Sea Devils is not a bad film, but it feels like a bargain basement Cagney/O'Brien or John Ford service comedy, a combination of both to be sure.

Victor Mclaglen was an actor of very limited range and ability.He found fame in his role as Flagg with Edmund Lowe playing Quirt in a series of military comedy adventures that started in the twenties and went through to the 40s.It seems that if Lowe wasn't around they hired a similar actor,in this case Preston Foster,to fill the void.It has to be said that after 5 minutes you can guess the plot and anticipate what is going to happen.It becomes utterly tiresome.Was it supposed to be funny or dramatic because it is neither.It is just totally formulaic.One can only assume that they did not have much money for special effects as the shipwreck scenes seem as if they are filmed in someones bathtub.So if you don't like Victor Mclaglen then don't bother with this film.

The movie opens with a gimmick that I've seen a number of times in films of the era that just doesn't make sense, with a newspaper headline describing an event that's occurring in real time. In this case it's a steam ship that's on fire with a Coast Guard ship to the rescue. It makes you wonder just how quick news could travel in a pre-internet world.The picture's story boils down to a romantic triangle between Ida Lupino's character Doris Malone, and her two maritime suitors, Mike O'Shay (Preston Foster) and Steve Webb (Donald Woods). Actually, make that a quartet, as Doris's father 'Medals' Malone (Victor McLaglen) is actively involved in pitting Webb against the unprincipled and brash O'Shay. When you come right down to it though, Webb never even seemed a contender for Miss Malone's affections, though he does figure in the climactic finale. But even though he dies from injuries sustained in an explosives accident, there's never any time to dwell on it, as the picture rushes off to a Coast Guard rescue of a yacht in hurricane trouble.By that time, O'Shay was in the brig of the U.S.S. Taro awaiting court martial for aggressively opposing Chief Mate Malone one too many times. Keep a sharp eye on that scene when he escapes by tricking a fellow seaman, the key was already in the cell lock - he could have gotten out at any time he wanted!Though the film is somewhat formulaic, the highlight comes near the end with the rescue scene mentioned earlier. You might be amazed as I was to see how the seamen used a shot line to rescue passengers from the distressed ship. If that's the kind of work the Coast Guard does, they're not paid enough!

The only reason to see this film is for the nice special effects involving a yacht being pounded against a reef in a hurricane and the way the coast guard rescues its passengers. I also enjoyed their mission to explode an iceberg. But I could have done without the brawling of Victor McLaglen and Preston Foster, which propelled the silly plot and just served to kill time between the action. I never did understand why servicemen fight so much in films of the 30's. Seeing a young Ida Lupino was also delightful and the comedy provided by Billy Gilbert and McLaglen's relationship with saloon owner Helen Flint helped a bit.The film is dedicated to the men of the coast guard, who often risk their lives to effect a rescue of distressed ships at sea.