"WAVES" here means "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service", the women's branch of the US Navy during World War II. Their British equivalents, the Women's Royal Naval Service, were similarly always referred to as "WRENS". The story revolves around twin sisters who are identical apart from their hair colour, but who have very different personalities. (Both are played by the same actress, Betty Hutton). Brunette Rosemary is sensible and practical, whereas blonde Susan is flighty and empty-headed.
As the film opens the two girls are performing together as a singing duet, but it is wartime and the patriotic Rosemary decides to join the WAVES in order to do her bit for her country. Susan decides to follow suit, motivated less by patriotism than by the thought that she and Rosemary have always done everything together and she cannot imagine the two being separated. The film then follows the girls' adventures in the WAVES and their rivalry for the affections of Johnny Cabot, a popular singer who has joined the Navy. Cabot is anxious to see active service, following in the footsteps of his father, a naval hero killed in the First World War, but is disappointed when Susan's machinations lead to him being ordered to direct a morale-raising revue.
Although the film is a light-hearted musical comedy, it is essentially a propaganda vehicle intended to publicise the role of the WAVES and to encourage more American women to serve their country in a military capacity. (Not all propaganda films were deadly serious). It doesn't, however, have much to recommend it to the modern viewer seventy years later. The songs are mostly forgettable; the best-known is "Accentuate the Positive", but that suffers in the context of this film of being performed by Bing Crosby and his sidekick Sonny Tufts in "blackface". Some have attempted to defend this practice by stating that it was all regarded as good harmless fun in 1944, but I can never understand how people of that period ever regarded it as anything but offensive, given that it seemed designed to mock and ridicule black people. Political correctness is not always a bad thing.
Hutton copes well with the task of conveying the sisters' differing personalities, but Crosby makes an unlikely romantic hero. He was a popular singer in his day, and a technically accomplished one, but his was a style of singing that seems very dated today. Like many male "crooners" of the era he has always struck me as too emotionally laid-back and distant, the sort of performer who sings about love without actually knowing what love is. (For some reason many female singers of the period seemed much more emotionally involved with their material). His acting tended to suffer from the same fault as his singing, and he never manages to convey any deep feelings, even though we are supposed to accept him as a man in love. "Here Come the Waves" is largely forgotten today, and I can understand why. 5/10
As the film opens the two girls are performing together as a singing duet, but it is wartime and the patriotic Rosemary decides to join the WAVES in order to do her bit for her country. Susan decides to follow suit, motivated less by patriotism than by the thought that she and Rosemary have always done everything together and she cannot imagine the two being separated. The film then follows the girls' adventures in the WAVES and their rivalry for the affections of Johnny Cabot, a popular singer who has joined the Navy. Cabot is anxious to see active service, following in the footsteps of his father, a naval hero killed in the First World War, but is disappointed when Susan's machinations lead to him being ordered to direct a morale-raising revue.
Although the film is a light-hearted musical comedy, it is essentially a propaganda vehicle intended to publicise the role of the WAVES and to encourage more American women to serve their country in a military capacity. (Not all propaganda films were deadly serious). It doesn't, however, have much to recommend it to the modern viewer seventy years later. The songs are mostly forgettable; the best-known is "Accentuate the Positive", but that suffers in the context of this film of being performed by Bing Crosby and his sidekick Sonny Tufts in "blackface". Some have attempted to defend this practice by stating that it was all regarded as good harmless fun in 1944, but I can never understand how people of that period ever regarded it as anything but offensive, given that it seemed designed to mock and ridicule black people. Political correctness is not always a bad thing.
Hutton copes well with the task of conveying the sisters' differing personalities, but Crosby makes an unlikely romantic hero. He was a popular singer in his day, and a technically accomplished one, but his was a style of singing that seems very dated today. Like many male "crooners" of the era he has always struck me as too emotionally laid-back and distant, the sort of performer who sings about love without actually knowing what love is. (For some reason many female singers of the period seemed much more emotionally involved with their material). His acting tended to suffer from the same fault as his singing, and he never manages to convey any deep feelings, even though we are supposed to accept him as a man in love. "Here Come the Waves" is largely forgotten today, and I can understand why. 5/10