Today I’m looking at “Mister Roberts” from 1955 and this is a World War II film starring screen legend-to-be Henry Fonda and already screen legend James Cagney. I had an uninformed idea about “Mister Roberts” when I chose to watch it for the first time in this week in 2024. I thought that it would be something along the lines of the comedy “Operation Petticoat” with Cary Grant and Tony Curtis (click here to read my review) or the comedy-drama “Father Goose” with Grant and Leslie Caron (click here to read my review), as both were set during the war in the Pacific and had Hollywood legends as stars. Also, the movie poster is very light-hearted. I couldn’t have been more wrong. “Mister Roberts” is a drama with some light moments, but is layered, nuanced and gives the audience spectacular work from the cast.
‘Mister Roberts’
(1955; 123 minutes; rated ‘Approved;’ directed by John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy and starring Henry Fonda, James Cagney and William Powell)
FONDA, CAGNEY, POWELL DO POWERFUL WORK
Going in to watching “Mister Roberts,” I knew that Henry Fonda was a great actor and a Hollywood legend and I saw James Cagney in his final big-screen effort with “Ragtime” from 1981. Both do an excellent turn in “Mister Roberts” and I was equally impressed with Willliam Powell, whom I’d never seen in a movie and who is equal to Fonda and Cagney in this one.
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I don’t believe many younger than 35 have seen “Mister Roberts” and I’ll tell that audience now – watch this film. It has excellent acting; no action needing CGI; and you’ll have to think during the film to enjoy all the nuance, a lone obvious symbol and underlying emotions of the characters.
“Mister Roberts” is a movie set in the late stages of World War II. Fonda plays “Lt. JG Douglas A. ‘Doug’ Roberts” and he is the “cargo officer” aboard a supply ship far away from the action in the Pacific. He keeps trying to get a transfer, but the despotic captain of the USS Reluctant, known by its crew as “The Bucket,” keeps blocking the transfer as he continues to make life pretty much unbearable for everyone else.
The film takes you on the roller coaster of emotions from Fonda: He wants to get into real action; he’s concerned about the sailors on the ship and will make a deal with the devil in the form of the captain to help them; he comes to regret his decision; and it spins out to a chaotic conclusion.
Fonda’s cabinmates are Powell as “Doc” and a young(ish) Jack Lemmon as “Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver.” Both officers help Fonda deal with the conflict that governs his military career and his life and each is a different from the other as you could find in two people.
Well, the stage is set when the USS Reluctant is sent to dock at a port known for its entertainment value to military folks. The entire crew is giddy about finally getting shore leave off the ship after a year. However, the tyrant of a captain says “no liberty” to all and Fonda ultimately makes a deal with Cagney – he’ll stop asking for a transfer and kowtow to the tyrannical captain in return for the crew getting the shore leave.
Fonda agrees, although immediately he begins to regret it. Of course, the drunken crew is hauled back to the ship wholesale by military police (Army cops) and the shore patrol (Navy cops) and even spoil a party being hosted by the island’s top naval officer. Some sailors are winched abord unconscious by cargo net. Cagney gets an earful from his boss and the ship is banished from the port.
Naturally, Cagney is even more hacked off at everyone that ever before. Cagney punishes the crew in front of Fonda and makes Fonda look like a lapdog to the captain who now seeking promotion, then the worst takes place: Fonda, in a fit of rage, throws the captain’s palm tree overboard.
The palm tree is a symbol throughout the film of all that’s wrong with the ship, its captain and its crew. Cagney won it for some assignment and it is a treasure that he carefully waters twice daily and is he virtually worships it. The destruction of the symbol is appreciated by everyone on the ship except Cagney, who suffers what appears to be a mild heart attack in an apoplectic rage when he finds out.
Now, let me pause here from the story to take a look at the primary cast:
An Oscar winner and two-time nominee and Golden Globe winner and nominee (not for this one), Fonda is pitch-perfect as the officer who gets the job done and is well-like by the crew. He’s itching to get into combat, but everything he does aboard the USS Reluctant is top-notch. Fonda easily shifts gears and projects a brow-beaten officer at the middle of the film and rises back at the end. Fonda won his Oscar and Globe for 1981’s “On Golden Pond” with the equally legendary and four-time Oscar winner Katherine Hepburn and his two-time Oscar-winning daughter Jane Fonda. He was nominated for “12 Angry Men” from 1957 and “The Grapes of Wrath” from 1940. I enjoyed his work in the big-cast WWI film “Battle of the Bulge” (click here to read my review) and he did a little check-cashing in a small role in “Rollercoaster” (click here to read my review). Fonda notched 125 acting credits spanning six decades with the first in 1931. He died of cardiorespiratory arrest at 77 in 1982.- An Oscar winner and two-time nominee, Cagney surprises with an effort punctuated by a nasty personality and cruel nature. The one aspect missing from “Mister Roberts” is the question, “Why is the captain such an all-around cretin?” Unlike Humphrey Bogart’s “Capt. Queeg” in “The Caine Mutiny” (click here to read my review) from the year before “Mister Roberts,” there’s no history to Cagney’s character. However, he is running on all cylinders in his big scene with Fonda as the two men hack away with no filter at each other. Cagney had a staccato delivery that I saw in “Ragtime” and it works to effect here. He won his Oscar for “Yankee Doodle Dandy” from 1942 and was nominated for “Love Me or Leave Me” from the year after “Mister Roberts” and nominated for “Angels with Dirty Faces” from 1938 with Pat O’Brien and Bogart. Cagney died of complications of diabetes at 85 in 1986.
A three-time Oscar nominee, Powell is smooth in his work as “Doc.” Powell’s character tends to be the voice of reason to Fonda and he is simply the definition of a great supporting actor in his role in this one. I would have enjoyed seeing his character get more screen time, but there are only so many minutes in a film – even one that’s three minutes longer than two hours. All three of Powell’s nominations were for “Best Actor” and they were “The Thin Man” in 1934 with Myrna Loy; “My Man Godfrey” in 1936 with Carole Lombard; and “Life With Father” in 1947 with Carole Lombard. He had 96 acting credits in a career that spanned four decades from the first in 1921 to MR, which was his last film. Powell was born in 1892 and along with Cagney (1896) were the only two in the principal cast born in the 19th He died of a heart attack at 91 in 1984.
A two-time Oscar winner (yes, one for “Mister Roberts”) and six-time nominee and six-time Golden Globe winner and amazingly 18-time Globe nominee, Lemmon is solid as the officer who has avoided the captain so much that Cagney doesn’t recognize him as a ship’s officer when they finally meet. Lemmon literally trembles with energy and excitement as he plows through the role of “Ensign Pulver.” He even won a Primetime Emmy and was nominated for four others. Lemmon was nominated for an Oscar for his work with the other Fonda (Jane) in “The China Syndrome” and his other Oscar win was for “Save the Tiger.” Frankly I believe his best work was in 1982’s “Missing” that co-starred Sissy Spacek in Costa-Gavras’ political statement film and he was nominated for a Globe for it. Lemmon had a sterling CV and was in many top-notch films including “JFK,” “Grumpy Old Men” and was probably best identified as being “Felix Ungar” in “The Odd Couple” with Walter Matthau. Lemmon was the pathetic loser of a salesman (but great actor) in “Glengarry Glen Ross” and he died of 76 of bladder cancer in 2001.
It’s too bad that the women of the cast, a group of nurses led by Betsy Palmer, who plays “Lt. Ann Girard,” have such a little role in the film. The ship’s crew first spots some of them at the women’s quarters through binoculars (that’s a big no-no today). They were not written in to move the story forward and the lack of importance in the film reflects how women were often portrayed back in the day. BTW … Palmer did play the killer in the horror classic “Friday the 13th” (click here for my review), which she did only for the paycheck so she could buy a new car. Palmer died at 89 in 2015.
As I already mentioned, Fonda gets his long-sought transfer as the crew finds out the length he went to get them the liberty that they so heartily enjoyed and then takes matters into its own hands and forges a request for transfer for Fonda from the captain. Fonda is told of the crew’s deception that helped him transfer from Powell and Fonda is overcome with emotion because of that act by the men.
You’ll figure out what happens next because there are only two possibilities and I’ll leave it to you to find out.
So, what did I learn by watching “Mister Roberts?” Well, three things:
- Fonda deserved every plaudit he ever received …
- … Cagney was a great actor from years gone by and therefore I might check out some of his other work …
- … Powell was another great actor whose work I was completely unfamiliar with before “Mister Roberts” and is worth checking out more today.
Oh, “Mister Roberts” was directed by one of Hollywood’s greatest directors in John Ford in a co-effort with Mervyn LeRoy. Ford was a four-time Oscar winner and two-time nominee (not for this one), but he also received two special Oscars for work on war films for the U.S. government during WWII (Hollywood never counted those two). His wins included for “The Grapes of Wrath” and “How Green Was My Valley.” He died of stomach cancer at 79 in 1973.
OK, here’s my boilerplate explanation about the “approved” rating: It comes from Hollywood’s rating system known as the “Hays Code” from the name of its chief censor, according to Wiki. From 1938 through 1968 films were evaluated and either deemed approved or disapproved (“moral” or “immoral”). Although officially abandoned in 1968 in favor of the start of the initial version of the rating system you see today, the “Hays Code” had pretty much disappeared in the 1960s due to the influence of television, edgy directors and U.S. Supreme Court rulings, according to Wiki.
“Mister Roberts” was the second-ranked film at the U.S. box office in 1955 with $8.5 million in ticket sales, according to Wiki. The No. 1 film was “Cinerama Holiday” with $10 million; “Battle Cry” was third with $8.5 million; and coming in at No. 4 was “Oklahoma!” with $7.1 million. “Mister Roberts” is the first film from 1955 that I’ve reviewed for my blog.
Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):
- “Mister Roberts” was first a novel by Thomas Heggen and then a play on Broadway, which was directed by Joshua Logan, who wound up working on re-shooting scenes in “Mister Roberts.”
- Ford was replaced by LeRoy reportedly after clashes with Fonda (Ford allegedly punched Fonda at one point) as well as a medical issue that required surgery. Also, Logan was called in later to re-shoot scenes at Fonda’s request, but did not get on-screen co-director’s credit.
- Directly from IMDb.com: “John Ford and Joshua Logan virtually disowned the film and Henry Fonda later claimed ‘I despised that movie.’”
- Ford’s birth name was John Martin Feeney; and Palmer’s was Patricia Betsy Hrunek.
- Fonda was born in Nebraska and his character in this one was born there, too.
- An interesting coincidence: Fonda and Lemmon both served in the U.S. Navy during WWII and each was discharged at the rank of the characters they would play in “Mister Roberts.”
- Fonda reportedly didn’t approve, but Ford encouraged Cagney and Lemmon to improvise.
- Fonda was the third choice by the producers to play the title character after Marlon Brando (he couldn’t because of filming a different movie) and Tyrone Power (Ford didn’t want him; he wanted Fonda).
- Eva Marie Saint was first cast as a nurse, but later was dropped after being pronounced to be too attractive.
- Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “When John Ford met James Cagney at the airport, the director warned that they would ‘tangle asses,’ which caught Cagney by surprise. The next day, Cagney was slightly late on set, and Ford became incensed. Cagney cut short the imminent tirade, saying: ‘When I started this picture, you said that we would tangle asses before this was over. I’m ready now – are you?’ Ford backed down and walked away, and he and Cagney had no further conflicts on the set. Cagney later said: ‘I would have kicked his brains out. He was so goddamned mean to everybody. He was truly a nasty old man.'”
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