“NAVY BLUES”

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3269, 28 May 1943, Page 5

“NAVY BLUES”

GOOD MUSICAL COMEDY PROGRAMME AT REGENT MIRTH,. MELODY AND DANCING “Navy Blues,” Warner Bros.’ streamlined musical comedy which conies to the Regent Theatre on Saturday and Monday, trips the light fantastic from the opening scene to the closing grand finale 108 minutes later. Here is a compote of mirth, melody, dancing and song hits seasoned well to please the entertainment appetite of the most epicureanised theatregoer. Choicest plums in this movie dessert are the dancing-singing comediennes, Ann Sheridan and Martha Raye, and the boisterous buffoons, Jack Oakie and Jack Haley. The story which skips around on and off the battleship Cleveland anchored in Hawaiian waters, finds the Jacks hopping about from the frying pan into the fire every time. Their bag of pranks is as full as old Santa’s toy sack at Christmas time. Haley accuses his ex-wife, Martha Raye, of being an international spy and has her thrown into jail. Oakie pawns the ship’s trophies and can’t get them back. Both clowns kidnap the fleet’s champion gun pointer, Herbert Anderson, who has been transferred to their ship, and bet their shipmate’s pay cheques on the outcome of the target title. When their chicanery doesn’t work they get chased all over the island 'and end up in a couple of hula skirts where they do a swing version of the hula with Ann Sheridan, a bevy of native dancers and the Navy Blues Sextet.

The only thing “right” that the Jacks do is to lead Ann Sheridan into the arms of gun pointer and hog caller Herbert Anderson to serve their own ends. Complications are so frequent they trip over each other and the picture is 108 minutes of laughs.

Song hits “In Waikiki” and “You’re a Natural,” as well as others written by Johnny Mercer and Arthur Schwartz, get a spring board swan dive into melody fame from the throats of Ann Sheridan, Martha Raye and the Navy Blues Sextet. The Sextet, a panoply of colour, beauty and dancing grace, is composed of Peggy Diggins, Georgia' Carroll, Loraine Gettman, Marguerite Chapman, Katharine Aldridge and Claire James. FINALLY TO-NIGHT DOUBLE FEATURE “Out of the Fog” and “Birth of the Blues” will show finally to-night at the Regent Theatre.