KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

bigverybadtom The DVD box billed this as a comedy...but it was hardly funny. Yes, you could laugh at a martinet ship captain for forbidding his crew to sing after he catches them singing a mocking song, or making an officer throw smuggled booze overboard. But there was nothing funny about his refusing compassionate leave to a sailor whose 18-month-old daughter had just died to allow him to attend the funeral. We could laugh at a petty tyrant, but not someone with no human compassion at all.The movie was a sequel to "Mister Roberts", which was far superior and had humor but did not lose sight of the seriousness of the war situation everyone was in. This was just a wretched attempt at comedy that I had to turn off after fifteen minutes. There were a number of major acting stars, as well as actors who would become big stars later. But the best performers couldn't possibly have made this movie work.

JohnLeeT Perhaps if this film had no connection at all to the superb Mister Roberts, it might rate three stars for being simply a terrible comedy misfire of stunning proportions. That could be forgiven, dismissed, and easily overlooked. However, this film exists only as a cynical effort to cash-in on the success of a treasured creative triumph which had been emotionally embraced by audiences worldwide. There is but one redeeming factor in this entire abomination of a sequel and that is the presence of Walter Matthau. He comes off well although the lifeless mess of a script gives him little to work with. The rest of the ensemble is a conglomeration of miscasting (the usually excellent Ives), actors lacking any talent whatsoever (Tommy Sands?!), and the completely charmless, irritating, and horrendously awful Robert Walker, Jr. He alone is enough to sink this stinking scow and was better suited to portraying psychopaths on TV when some delusional casting director actually believed Walker, Jr. would be just right for some doomed police procedural. While it is somewhat interesting to see young future stars at the start of their careers, the performances are really pretty bad and all of these now well-known actors were fortunate to have survived this wreck, let alone going on to win multiple awards, appearing in some of the most successful television programs/films ever produced, and earning many millions in cash. Besides a soulless script, Ensign Pulver was personally assassinated by director Josh Logan, acting without mercy and with a vicious abandon that is painful to witness. Even a gentle soul like Mr. Roberts himself might well have taken some drastic action if he had seen the ruthless damage inflicted upon this rusting tub of unpleasantness and would have desperately deflected Logan's grim pattern of relentless torpedoes. Alas, those who saw the original Mr. Roberts will most likely find this ghastly garbage barge a heartbreaking insult to the source material if not an outright greedy criminal assault upon a beloved classic.

screenman Not even Walter Matthau's presence could save this tacky, lacklustre sequel of the 1950's movie 'Mr Roberts'. The original starred Henry Fonda, James Cagney, and featured Jack Lemon as Ensigh Pulver. Non of them feature in this sequel and it pretty well founders before you very eyes.It just doesn't flow like the original. The gags are contrived and the cast have an appearance of knowing that they are competing against a successful precursor and try a little to hard. The result is a bit hammy.Not recommended.

capricorn9 The only thing this film has going for it is catching all the great actors, at the start of their careers) that are in smaller roles as the sailors on board - James Farentino, a skinny James Coco, Larry Hagman, George Lindsay, Dick Gautier and even a young Jack Nicholson! OK Walter Matthau is worth watching in anything he does, but that is all. The rest of the film is another Josh Logan homo-erotic mess. Yes, it is. He seems to have spent more time on the scenes where the sailors get together and have fun dancing in their underwear, whacking each other on the butt, running around with no shirts and skimpy shorts and there is even a scene where one sailor, as they sit and listen to the radio, has one arm draped over another guys leg. The rest of the story is like the boat they are on - old, rusty and goes no where. The worst is Robert Walker(who should have kept the Jr after his name)who does his best to do a perfect Jack Lemmon impersonation and that gets irritating as you wonder why they didn't get Jack himself. He probably read the script.