Riveter "Chesty" O'Connor and his best friend "Droopy" join the US Navy to annoy O'Connor's nemesis, Chief Petty Officer "Biff" Martin. O'Connor gets himself court-martialled for being AWOL while visiting Martin's sister Dorothy. Disgruntled at his treatment, O'Connor angrily derides the Navy and finds himself ostracized by his fellow sailors.
During gunnery practice, O'Connor helps put out a fire in a gun room and receives the Navy Cross medal, but is still determined to get out of the Navy. Later. O'Connor transfers to the US Naval Air Service and is assigned to the rigid airshipUSS Macon. When the Macon tries to dock, Martin is accidentally caught on a guide rope and is hoisted into the air. [Note 1] Despite orders, O'Connor climbs down the rope and saves Martin's life by parachuting both of them to the ground.
Later, at the wedding of O'Connor to Dorothy, Martin finds out that O'Connor has been promoted to boatswain and now outranks him.
With the full cooperation of the US Navy, principal photography, which ended early May 1934, took place at a number of naval facilities, including the Bremerton Navy yard, Washington, Naval Training Station, San Diego, California, as well as other locations in San Pedro and Sunnyvale, California.[3] Naval personnel made up many of the extras on the film. Of historical interest is that a portion of the filming of Here Comes the Navy took place aboard the battleship Arizona, which was sunk by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor. Further, portions of the film also include shots of the dirigibleMacon, a year before the accident that destroyed the airship with the loss of two crew.[4]
In his review for The New York Times, film critic Frank Nugent described Here Comes the Navy as another of the films in "traditional Cagneyesque manner." "Some of the heartiest laughs of the current cinema season were recorded last night in the Strand Theatre, where "Here Comes the Navy" had its metropolitan première. A fast-moving comedy enriched by an authentic naval setting, this Warner production has the added advantage, in these parlous times, of being beyond censorial reproach."[5]
^ abcWarner Bros financial information in The William Shaefer Ledger. See Appendix 1, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, (1995) 15:sup1, 1-31 p 15 DOI: 10.1080/01439689508604551
Smith, Richard K. The Airships Akron & Macon: Flying Aircraft Carriers of the United States Navy. Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1965. ISBN0-87021-065-3.
