The play Shore Leave was given another and final musical adaption in 1955 serving as a great showcase for some mighty talented stars at MGM. Vincent Youmans and Irving Caesar wrote the original musical Hit the Deck for Broadway in the twenties and an film adaption was done in 1930 starring Jack Oakie. Then Irving Berlin did his own version for the screen in Follow the Fleet for Fred and Ginger.

Come 1955 and we have still another script retaining some of the Youmans-Caesar songs and adding several Youmans numbers from other shows. The songs are well integrated into the story since it involves some sailors on shore leave in San Francisco involved with some musical performers.

The sailors are Tony Martin, Vic Damone, and Russ Tamblyn. Martin and Damone are two of the best voices around and Tamblyn is a good dancer. They pair off with Ann Miller, Jane Powell, and Debbie Reynolds.

Martin is having trouble with Miller, they have a Nathan Detroit/Adelaide relationship long distance and she's tired of it. In the mean time Powell who is Tamblyn's sister is involved with a Broadway wolf played with relish by Gene Raymond. Both are the offspring of Admiral Walter Pidgeon.

Anyway our sailors rescue damsel in distress Powell and spend most of the film hiding from the Shore Patrol. One of the two Shore Patrolmen is played by Alan King who was appearing with Martin in his nightclub act and Martin got the part for him in Hit the Deck.

Powell and Damone had already been a screen team in Rich, Young and Pretty and also had appeared in Deep in My Heart together in a musical number. They do a two nice duets with a couple of noted Youmans songs I Know that You Know and Sometimes I'm Happy. Martin's big solo number is the famous More Than You Know trying to win Miller back. And our Ann dances to Keeping Myself for You, Bayou, and the Hallelujah finale number.

Up till Showboat, musicals in fact had thin plots for stories and were just an excuse for singing and dancing. Hit the Deck is a throwback to those days. But a nicely done throwback.

Of course Ann Miller is just fine, but why oh why didn't MGM cast Cyd Charisse opposite her husband? Missed another opportunity.

Look for Richard Anderson who has a small role as the aide to Walter Pidgeon. In a very understated way he's the one who brings about a satisfactory conclusion to one and all.

Three sailors can't stay out of trouble. Be it with the girls, mom, or conniving dandies. Plenty of action is provided through song and dance routines where everyone gives fine performances. While this was not a great musical, it was still a nice little story with some good funny spots supplied by J. Carroll Naish and Alan King.

Sing Hallelujah and Get Happy! Entertainment is on its way! The composers who wrote "Tea For Two" and "I Want to Be Happy" for "No No Nanette" also wrote a musical about the Navy in port long before Bernstein & Comden & Green got together for "On the Town". There weren't Jerome Robbins ballets or Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra in uniform, no world war, just sailor on leave coming to see their girls. "Shore Leave", the original play this was based upon, was also made as the Astaire/Rogers musical "Swing Time" with songs by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields. 25 years later, the Broadway version of the original musical was back on the screen (a 1930 film version has apparently vanished from the face of the earth) and filled with MGM's best musical contract players.

Tony Martin, Vic Damone and Russ Tamblyn are the sailors; Ann Miller, Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds are their girls. Miller tap dances (barefoot this time!) to "The Lady From the Bayou", indignant to the fact she hasn't heard from Martin in ions; Powell is hoping for an audition from producer Gene Raymond who has only one thing on his mind, and Reynolds is the plucky youngest of the trio who is just out for romance. She finds it inside a carnival haunted house in a dance with Tamblyn in one of the most underrated sequences from an MGM musical. Why it was not even briefly included in any of the "That's Entertainment!" films is beyond comprehension. Powell sings the beautiful "Sometimes I'm Happy" as only she could with her delightful soprano. Then, there's the very Italian Kay Armen along to sing the crowd-pleasing standard "Ciribiribin" and takes center stage in "Hallelujah!" at the finale.

There are so many wonderful moments in this "let's just have fun" musical comedy that there's really nothing to complain about. It's not "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers", but it's certainly no "Kissing Bandit" either. Such veterans as Walter Pidgeon (as Powell's father),Jane Darwell and Alan King pop up as well to make this an entertaining treat that is sure to delight you!