Swan Song September: Mister Roberts (1955)

This month we watch films featuring the final performance of a beloved star. This week we witness William Powell's work in Mister Roberts.

RODNEY BOWCOCK: The film is set on a navy cargo ship, The Reluctant, perched in the Pacific Ocean far from any of the conflicts that we are used to being thrust into in these sorts of films. It centers on Doug Roberts (Henry Fonda), the cargo chief of the ship, who is thirsty to see more of the battle action that he fantasizes about, his bunkmate, Ensign Pulver (Jack Lemmon) who is eager to see more of the women that he fantasizes about (he has underlined passages in God's Little Acre) and “Doc” (William Powell), the ships’ doctor. Roberts desperately wants to be transferred to another ship, but his efforts are thwarted by Lt Commander Morton (James Cagney) who seems to refuse the requests out of a sheer desire to make life difficult for Roberts, perhaps because he is so much more liked and respected than Morton, who rules by fear rather than a sense of mutual respect. To reveal more than this little bit would set up a series of spoilers that I shall not give away if you’ve never seen the film. There are also interesting glimpses into the day to day life of the sailors on the ship, giving a layperson like me a view of what this side of war looked like.

SAMANTHA GLASSER: In a scene when the ship is unloading supplies, the recipients ask if they want to swap movies. When Roberts asks what they have to trade, the sailor tells him The Sheriff's Daughter with Hoot Gibson, a joke implying the age and undesirability of the film. I looked it up and no such film exists, although after seeing a Hoot Gibson movie at Capitolfest this year, I can say I wouldn't have traded either.

RB: I thought that was a take-off on the old dirty jokes about farmer’s daughters, and, yes, also the age of the films that they were being sent. Although, it should be noted that during the time that the film takes place, ol’ Hoot was co-starring in the Trail Blazers series of films at Monogram, appearing in 11 films throughout 1943 and 1944, and much later, in 1953 co-starred in a film called The Marshal’s Daughter, so perhaps we’re both wrong, or partially wrong. Or neither. Who knows?

SG: One of the best pieces of dialogue is in the scene where Roberts explains to Pulver that he likes him, but he doesn't respect him because he never follows through on the things he says he will do. "That's the day I'll have some respect for you; that's the day I"ll look up to you as a man. Okay?" It is delivered with sensitivity and directness and shows why Roberts is so beloved by his men. He speaks to them like equals but expects them to live up to certain standards.

RB: This is a movie full of quiet speeches and scenes that reveal the depths of the characters, as they each have their own subplot, stuck on a claustrophobic ship with not much to do except complete menial, tedious tasks and talk to each other. I enjoyed the scene where Doc and Roberts make “scotch” for Pulver, which must’ve been absolutely disgusting if anyone attempted such a thing in real life. Of course, bootleg hootch on Navy ships wasn’t exactly an unknown thing.

SG: We don't see the sailors on liberty, only the results, which are pretty raucous. A group of men sporting black eyes are returned by an angry Army official who accuses them of crashing their party and sexually harassing their female guests, a sailor boards with a stolen goat, and one man drives by the boat and crashes into the sea on a motorcycle.

Apparently, the scene where Pulver brags about the potency of his homemade bomb ended with a racy joke in the original iteration of the play.:

ROBERTS: That stuff's murder. Do you suppose he'll use it? DOC: Of course not. Where would he get fulminate of mercury? ROBERTS: I dunno. He's pretty resourceful. Eighteen months at sea without liberty-- where'd he get the clap?

RB: Obviously, that’s the sort of thing that wouldn’t fly at the time, but it is a great joke.

SG: Playwright Josh Logan discovered a book of short stories written by Tom Heggen, a sailor on the USS Virgo, and thought it would make a good play. The two worked on the adaptation, and when it was completed realized they had both been imagining Henry Fonda as Doug Roberts. Logan and Fonda had been friends for years, so it wasn't unusual that he would be thinking of him for the part, but he didn't want to give the appearance of favoritism by casting him. Fonda read the play and wanted to do it, but he was in contact with Fox to make a film. He urged his agent Lew Wasserman to get him out of it, and he did.

"One of the beautiful things about the theater for me is that it's therapy," Fonda said. "I don't have to be me. I've got that mask on. And Roberts was one of the best masks I ever had." Fonda wore his own cotton Navy cap during the run of the play. A few actors were cast as the single female nurse, one being Eva Marie Saint, but she was judged to be too beautiful which made the audience yearn for her to return to the stage, even though the role was small. They recast with Jocelyn Brando, sister of Marlon.

RB: It was a good casting choice. Brando is very cute, but also has looks more girl-next-door than Saint, who could have easily stolen the scene from Lemmon.

SG: There was a London run of the play which starred Tyrone Power with Jackie Cooper as Ensign Pulver. When Warner Brothers opted to make a film version, they wanted Power because they felt Fonda was too old at age 50 to be playing someone in his late 20s, but director John Ford insisted on Fonda.

RB: Fonda had been off the screen for seven years when the film was announced, and Warner Brothers was concerned that he may not have the star power to carry the big budget feature that he once did. They wanted someone younger and hipper, like Marlon Brando. I’m glad that cooler heads prevailed, because Fonda is great in this role.

SG: The location shots were filmed at Midway atoll and Kaneohe, Hawaii for four weeks each. "Midway is a marvelous place to shoot a movie about the Navy," Fonda said. "The supply ship was swinging on the hook in the lagoon, the high Pacific sky is a sky you'd never get on a set on the backlot of Warner Brothers Studio in front of an old blue cyclorama."

RB: Originally the film was announced as being shot in 3-D, but that idea was abandoned and the film was released in Cinemascope. The shots of vast water must’ve been amazing on a big screen. This is a title that I’ll likely never get to see that way, but I bet it would be something.

SG: When Ford was hired to create the film, Fonda was happy because they had a good working relationship. (He called Ford "Pappy.") Powell didn't fare as well. He had come out of retirement to play Doc, so felt a bit rusty from the two-year hiatus and Ford's unforgiving abrasiveness didn't make him feel at ease. In one scene, Powell and Fonda had been playing their lines for about two minutes when a cloud drifted by and shadowed their faces. Powell hesitated because most directors would yell cut and reset, but Ford didn't, and the anticipation threw off his rhythm. Originally, Ford wanted Spencer Tracy for the part, which may have accounted for his attitude toward Powell.

RB: While Ford had lobbied for Fonda to star in the picture, they had eventually had words too, with some sources saying that Ford punched Fonda in the jaw during an argument which led to his dismissal from the film. Ford also got into it with Cagney when he was late for set one day.

SG: Ford was known for his heavy drinking, but usually he was dry while he was working. On Mister Roberts, he was openly drinking on set, and he used Fonda as a crutch to approve or disapprove takes. After location shooting was finished, Ford entered the hospital in need of a kidney operation.

With Ford no longer able to direct, Mervyn Leroy took over and finished the film at Warner Brothers with a day's notice. Luckily, he had seen the play twice. "They all pitched in to help me," he said. "It is never easy for a director to step into a partially finished film, but this one was particularly tough, because of the short notice they had given me. It was tough, very tough-- but it worked." He remembered that Ford had altered the script to turn Doc into an alcoholic, but he felt it changed the tone of the story, so he removed those references.

RB: After LeRoy finished the film, Fonda encouraged Joshua Logan to come in and redo some of LeRoy’s work. While Logan was uncredited, reportedly many scenes were reshot. When you consider all of this, it’s no wonder that an already tired Powell would ultimately retire after the film wrapped up shooting with its THIRD director.

SG: Yes, in spite of the turmoil behind the scenes, the film is ultimately cohesive. After completing work on the film, Powell re-entered retirement, spending his remaining 30 years with his wife Diana Lewis in the desert. He began to lose his hearing near the end, but never stopped dressing impeccably, ever the star. Lemmon said, "Bill was probably the most attractive man I've ever met... He was not only filled with qualities of decency, he had a sense of compassion, humor and gentleness, and above all, he had grace and elegance. That man spread an awful lot of sunshine."

Cagney admired Lemmon's work prior to working with him, and after reading the scene where the captain learns his ensign has been on board more than a year without meeting him, Cagney knew they'd have to rehearse extensively so he didn't break up on camera. "I used to collapse every time Jack said, 'Fourteen months, sir,' but when we filmed it, I was able to hang on, just barely. What you see in the film is the top of Mount Everest for us after our rigorous rehearsals. It still kills me every time I think about it. Mister Roberts is the kind of thing I enjoy doing best in the non-musical field, drama with comic overtones."

RB: While there is comedy in the film, I don’t recall any of it coming from Cagney, although he does seem to relish a role that’s a little different than what we typically associate with him.

SG: Lemmon's youthful face and manic energy is endearing in the part. "Roberts was my first experience with the biggies," Lemmon said. "Hank turned all of us into a family and we stayed that way through the years. That rarely happens in movies."

RB: Lemmon, of course, cemented his proper place as one of the biggies when he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the film.

SG: A sequel titled Ensign Pulver starring Robert Walker Jr. was released in 1964.

RB: There was also a short lived 1965 TV series that ran on NBC for one season before it was cancelled due to low ratings. I haven’t seen the show (who has?) but it’s hard to imagine the source material being adapted in the style of the army comedies of the time like Hogans Heroes and Gomer Pyle USMC.

SG: Movies based on plays can sometimes be static, but there are enough differences between the interior and exterior shots to maintain visual interest, and the rich dialogue makes it a notch above your average movie because it will stand up to repeat viewing. The lead actors all get a chance to shine, and I found myself looking up some of the minor players because they had interesting character faces. Three and a half stars.

RB: This is a talky movie. There’s not a lot of action, but the conversation and conflict is so fascinating that the two hour run time flies by. I really enjoyed this. Four stars.