Don't Go Near the Water

One of the movies that shows up a lot on TCM when they need marathons of military movies for Memorial Day or some other reason is Don't Go Near the Water. It's a change of pace from the action/epics, and an MGM movie that would have been part of the old Turner Library, so presumably cheap for the channel to program. It aired again this past Memorial Day weekend, which gave me the opportunity to finally watch it.

I don't want to say that there's no plot to the movie, but it's definitely more of an episodic movie than one with an overarching plot. The establishing story, as it were, involves Lt. Max Siegel (Glenn Ford), who's stationed on an island in the Pacific that's a ways away from the front lines, to the chagrin of at least some people who want to actually fight. The reason they're stuck in the rear is because their job is to be liaisons with the domestic press and the bigwigs like Congressmen who want to come closer to the front. Head of the PR corps, and happy not to have to fight, is Lt. Cmdr. Clinton Nash (Fred Clark). Indeed, one of the subplots involves him trying to make things easier for the other officers under his command and to avoid dealing with the admiral.

As I said, it's more episodic, or perhaps you could consider it as having a bunch of subplots. The first of these involves Siegel, who has been doing the goodwill thing at a local school, trying to get material for teacher Melora (Gia Scala). You could see the two of them falling in love, but Siegel is American and looking to get home after the war ends, while Melora doesn't want to leave the island because the islanders need teachers like her.

Under the officers are enlisted men like Ens. Garrett (Earl Holliman). He's one of those people who really wants to get into action, but at the same time, he also falls in love with one of the nurses, Lt. Tomlen (Anne Francis). She loves him too, but there's a catch, which is that officers and enlisted men aren't supposed to have that sort of relation. It's one of the biggest no-nos, but there you are. Siegel has to run interference, but it's going to wind up with him developing romantic feelings for Tomlen.

There's PR work to be done, and one of the pieces of PR work involves trying to put a regular enlisted man on a tour of the homefront much like one of those heroes getting time off from the front to do a war bond tour stateside. Unfortunately for Nash and his subordinates, they pick Farragut Jones (Mickey Shaughnessy), who is the most foul-mouthed sailor you can think of, making even the other sailors blush.

The other PR work involves a lady reporter from the states coming out to visit, Deborah Aldrich (Eva Gabor). She wants to get closer to the front so she can do some real reporting, but there's a reason why the navy brass don't want to put women aboard the ships sailing around the ocean, never mind the ones steaming toward the front lines. Deborah, however, gets aboard one of the ships surreptitiously and isn't discovered until it's too late for the commander to do anything about it.

All of the various portions of Don't Go Near the Water are competently handled, and it's not really as though there's a lot wrong with the picture. At the same time however, it also feels like there's not much noteworthy going on, along with a serious sense of being studio-bound. Glenn Ford shows he's adept at this sort of comedy, and everybody else acquits themselves well, so I can't not recommend it. It's just that it probably could have been a lot better, too.