Dunham16 Review of Hit the Deck

Hit the Deck (1955)

unfulfilled promise for star cast and high technology production

[6/10 · 16 October 2013]

One of the most expensive musical comedy films of the 1950's, its high technology cinemascope friendly presentation and its star cast, with Walter Pidgeon, J. Carrol Naish, Richard Anderson and Alan Hale supporting an unusual set of Principals - Jane Powell, Ann Miller,Debbie Reynolds, Tony Martin, Vic Damone and Russ Tamblyn, it seems to have generated surprisingly little recent buzz. The Hubert Osborne play, later a musical comedy play by Herbert Fields, then a Hollywood film whose plot seems surprisingly similar to "Follow the Fleet" and "On The Town", offer particular strong and memorable episodes though not a strong and memorable film. Perhaps its time period, the 1950's Hollywood musical whose unwelcome attempts to meld dance style set pieces with crooning style set pieces pleased neither the generic dance audience nor the generic crooner audience, is to blame.