We Joined the Navy

We Joined the Navy (1963)

The comedy RIOT of the SEASON!!

Lt Commander Badger, RN: an exceptionally likeable fellow, the Artful Bodger has one besetting sin a shining honesty which compels him to say the right thing at entirely the wrong time! When untimely remarks to some new recruits are splashed across the tabloids, the rush is on to find him a new posting somewhere far away.

Date of release
1963-05-17
TMDB
6.0 / 10 (10)
Runtime
1h 45m
Genres
Comedy
Director
Wendy Toye

Casting

Interesting facts

We Joined the Navy is a 1962 British comedy film directed by Wendy Toye and starring Kenneth More, Lloyd Nolan, Joan O'Brien, Derek Fowlds, Graham Crowden, Esma Cannon and John Le Mesurier. Produced by Daniel M. Angel, it was written by Howard Dimsdale based on the 1959 novel of the same name by John Winton, a former Royal Navy lieutenant commander.

Production

The 1959 novel of the same name was written by John Winton, a pseudonym for Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander John Pratt. He based the character of Robert Badger on Captain John Ronald Gower, whom he had served under in the Royal Navy. In early 1959, producer Daniel Angel bought the film rights as a vehicle for Kenneth More.

Angel was blacklisted by cinema chains in England for two years for selling his films to television. We Joined the Navy was his comeback film. "They held out longer than I thought they would," said Angel. "The reasons for the unbanning are unspecified. I was just made to understand that if I produced films, the exhibitors would consider showing them."

In 1961 Daniel Angel signed a deal to produce a number of movies for Associated British of which this was to be the first (West 11 was the second).

More made it after his attempts to star in a film based on the book White Rabbit fell through. He called We Joined the Navy "the funniest script I've ever read" and said "it will be the I'm Alright Jack of the navy."

Toyes said Dirk Bogarde did a cameo as a favour to More and Danny Angel. "He was wonderful," said the director. "He came down, he only had had one very short scene to do, there were lots and lots of little cameo parts. And he never put a foot wrong, never had to have another tape, just came in and did it and had gone in about half an hour."

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended