Anchors Aweigh (1945)

by Tristi Pinkston | More from this Blogger

28 May 2008 10:55 PM

"Anchors Aweigh" is a charming film. When Clarence Doolittle (Frank Sinatra) and Joseph Brady (Gene Kelly), members of the gun crew on a Navy submarine, take heroic action in the face of danger, they are awarded the Silver Cross and given three days of leave on shore in California. They immediately head to Hollywood, where Lola, one of Joe's many girlfriends, is waiting for him. However, he's not fated to meet up with Lola-he keeps getting sidetracked.

First, there's Clarence, who has never had a girlfriend and badly wants Joe to teach him how to get one. Clarence is a shy crooner who's got gobs of sincerity but very few social skills. Joe, on the other hand, is called "the Sea Wolf" by his shipmates. With a girl in every port, or at least, a story about a girl in every port, he's just the guy to teach Clarence. Or so Clarence thinks.

But then another thing happens to keep Joe from meeting Lola. A police car pulls up and the officer asks Joe to come down to the station. Seems a little boy named Donald has run away to join the Navy, and the police think perhaps a sailor could get through to the boy where they failed. Joe manages to get the boy's name and address, and then goes along to take the boy home. He and Clarence promise to talk to the boy's aunt about the possibility of someday letting Donald join the Navy. They are expecting a spinster aunt, but they are blown away when they discover that Aunt Susie is really a young, lovely singer (Kathryn Grayson). Clarence immediately falls head over heels in love.

But when Joe's plan to help Clarence win Aunt Susie involves ruining her chances of auditioning for the great pianist Jose Iturbi, the two sailors embark on a crazy quest to get her introduced to the musician and make up for their blunder. Along the way, Clarence discovers that maybe there's another girl in the world for him after all, and Joe lets his guard down and comes to care very much for Aunt Susie.

This movie includes a ground-breaking sequence in which Gene Kelly dances with Jerry, the animated mouse. Such a thing had never been done in Hollywood before, and it paved the way for other movies to combine animation with live action in a truly interactive way.

While this film does resemble "On the Town" in a lot of ways, I prefer this storyline much more. It has more music, more depth, and who doesn't love Kathryn Grayson?

This film was not rated.

Related Blogs:

Les Girls

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Gene Kelly: Anatomy of a Dancer

Learn more about Tristi Pinkston

I've been a blogger for Families.com since August of 2006.

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