All Ashore (1953)

User Rating:

4.9/10   

Director:

Richard Quine

Writers:

Blake Edwards (writer)
Richard Quine (writer)

Release Date:

3 March 1953 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Musical

Tagline:

GOBS OF SONGS! OCEANS OF MOONLIGHT ROMANCES! (original print ad - all caps)

Plot:

Three sailors finally get some shore leave, and go in search of fun and girls. |

Plot Keywords:

Shore Leave | Sailor | Beautiful Woman

Cast

Mickey Rooney	...	Francis 'Moby' Dickerson
Dick Haymes	...	Joe Carter
Peggy Ryan	...	Gay Night
Ray McDonald	...	Skip Edwards
Barbara Bates	...	Jane Stanton
Jody Lawrance	...	Nancy Flynn
Fay Roope	...	Commodore Stanton
Jean Willes	...	Rose
Rica Owen	...	Dotty
Patricia Walker	...	Susie
Eddie Parker	...	Sheriff Billings (as Edwin Parker)
Dick Crockett	...	Charlie - Security Guard
Frank Kreig	...	Arthur Barnaby
Ben Welden	...	Hugo, the Bartender
Gloria Pall	...	Lucretia

Runtime:

80 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:S | Sweden:Btl | USA:Approved (PCA #16046)

Filming Locations:

Santa Catalina Island, Channel Islands, California, USA

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Soundtrack:

Boy Meets Girl

A Costello With Two Abbotts

All Ashore is this light musical from Columbia Pictures that I think was made to give Catalina Island tourism a big push. I wouldn't be surprised if Harry Cohn didn't have some business interests there.

The male leads were two guys on the downward slope of their careers, Dick Haymes and Ray McDonald, and Mickey Rooney who was trying to transition to adult star and shed his Andy Hardy image. The female leads are Barbara Bates, Jody Laurence, and in her final film Peggy Ryan.

The sailors on leave musical is something that has been done and redone into several incarnations. Off the top of my head I can think of such films as Follow the Fleet, Hit the Deck, Anchors Aweigh, and On the Town, all of which are better than All Ashore. Then again these musicals had scores written by such folks as Vincent Youmans, Irving Berlin, Jule Styne, Sammy Cahn, and Leonard Bernstein. The score here by Fred Karger and Robert Wells is singularly unmemorable.

The performers all have done better material themselves. Mickey Rooney had a role written for him that made him like Lou Costello constantly being taken advantage of by a pair of Abbotts in McDonald and Haymes. What was great for Costello doesn't quite work for the Mick.

All Ashore is all right, but hardly a nautical treasure.