A brash & cocky seaman acts like a true SON OF A SAILOR as he stumbles from one mishap to another.
Comic Joe E. Brown literally dominates this funny little film, and that is not a bad thing. With his huge mouth and amusing body movements, Brown is a very humorous fellow to watch. He is given abundant opportunity here to display his talents. Whether successfully wooing a series of lovely ladies with only a pair of baby shoes as a prop, struggling with a spy in an open cockpit aeroplane, or finding himself stranded on a bombarded battleship, Brown always supplies plenty of laughs.
It's his costars who are given very short shrift. Frank McHugh plays the sailor stooge who idolizes Brown, but he disappears early in the proceedings (but not before a wonderfully uproarious scene in which Brown teaches him how to flirt). The very talented & tragic Thelma Todd plays a mysterious baroness, but outside of a great sequence where she attempts to keep Brown locked in her bedroom, she is shamelessly wasted. Pretty Jean Muir as an admiral's granddaughter and stalwart Johnny Mack Brown as a Navy inventor, are both merely used to move the plot along and their potential romantics is completely ignored.
Way down the cast list is Arthur Vinton, who does score nicely as a suave English butler who must use his considerable muscle to keep Joe from escaping the home of Samuel S. Hinds, who plays Miss Muir's grandfather.
Movie mavens will recognize an uncredited Ward Bond playing a suspicious cabby.