Sailor's Luck

Sailor's Luck (1933)

U.S. sailor Jimmy Harrigan, on shore leave in San Pedro, meets and falls for Sally Brent She promises to wait for him when he ships out to San Francisco, but Jimmy becomes jealous and tells her off when he learns Sally has entered a marathon dance contest sponsored by a lecherous snake named Baron Portola. Along with several of his Navy pals, Jimmy goes to the ballroom the night of the dance marathon, to try to change Sally's mind and win her back.

Date of release
1933-03-17
TMDB
6.0 / 10 (5)
Runtime
1h 18m
Genres
Romance, Comedy
Director
Raoul Walsh

Casting

Interesting facts

Sailor's Luck is a 1933 American pre-Code romantic comedy film directed by Raoul Walsh for Fox Film Corporation. It stars James Dunn, Sally Eilers, Victor Jory, and Frank Moran.

Production

Before the start of production, the film's title was changed from Sailor's Luck to Bad Boy, ostensibly in order to associate it with James Dunn and Sally Eilers' first successful screen pairing in Bad Girl (1931). The studio reinstated the original title during production. Fox later released Bad Boy in 1935, starring Dunn and Dorothy Wilson.

Sailor's Luck was the last film that Raoul Walsh directed for Fox. According to Walsh biographer Moss, the film's theme is expressed in a lyric in an onscreen musical number: "Love makes the world go 'round". The film managed to evade censorship even though it showed the unmarried characters played by Dunn and Eilers renting a room together, lying together and kissing in bed, and Eilers scampering around the room and out into the hallway wearing…

A gay pool attendant is seen in the swimming pool sequence. Played by Frank Atkinson, the character flounces about and uses effeminate body language. When he bids the sailors adieu, Dunn tells his mates in Pig Latin: "Gay-zee ansy-pay". A draft script indicates that a more fully-developed male gay character named Violetta was originally planned for this sequence, being either a pool employee or the manager's brother-in-law.

Sailor's Luck was the first film for costume designer William Lambert, who worked for the studio until 1936.

Sailor's Luck was the fourth screen pairing of the popular acting duo of Dunn and Eilers. Several character actors from Walsh's previous production, Me and My Gal (1932), were also cast—including Frank Moran, who plays the same character as he did in the earlier film. This was the first major screen role for Victor Jory.

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