Oh Sailor Behave
| Oh Sailor Behave (1930) | |
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| Directed by | Archie Mayo |
| Written by | Joseph Jackson Sid Silvers from the play by Elmer Rice |
| Starring | Irene Delroy Charles King Lowell Sherman Noah Beery Ole Olsen Chic Johnson Vivien Oakland Lotti Loder |
| Music by | Joseph Burke Al Dubin Leonid S. Leonardi David Mendoza |
| Cinematography | Devereaux Jennings |
| Editing by | William Holmes |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | August 16, 1930 |
| Running time | 70 min. |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
Oh Sailor Behave (1930) is a musical comedy produced and released by Warner Brothers, and based on the play See Naples and Die, written by Elmer Rice. The film was originally intended to be entirely in Technicolor and was advertised as such in movie trade journals. Due to the backlash against musicals, it was apparently released in black-and-white only.
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[edit] Plot
An American newspaper reporter named Charlie Carroll (Charles King) falls for a young heiress named Nanette Dodge (Irene Delroy), who is engaged to be married to a Prince Kasloff (Lowell Sherman), whom she does not love. After being rebuked by Nanette, the prince hires a Romanian general (Noah Beery) to kidnap her. Charlie, thinking she has eloped, consoles himself with a local siren named Kunegundi (Vivien Oakland) until he realizes that she has been kidnapped and sets out to rescue her.
Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson provide comic relief that is completely unrelated to the main story. They play the part of two American sailors stationed in Naples who find a wooden-legged thief who has robbed the navy storehouse in Venice.
[edit] Music
- "When Love Comes In The Moonlight"
- "Leave A Little Smile"
- "Highway to Heaven"
- "The Laughing Song"
- "Tell Us Which One Do You Love"
[edit] Production background
- Charles King recorded three songs for the film for Brunswick Records: Brunswick 4840 (Highway to Heaven/When Love Comes in the Moonlight); Brunswick 4849 (Leave A Little Smile). The other side of Brunswick 4849 featured a song from the aborted MGM revue The March of Time (1930).
- This was to be Charles King's last musical movie. He went back to the Broadway stage, since movie audiences had grown tired of musicals, and never returned to the screen.
- Due to the public apathy towards musicals, Warner Bros. did not debut this film in the usual prestigious movie theaters. The film was immediately placed in general release with no fan-fare.
- Comedians Olsen and Johnson were added to the film because of the growing public apathy towards serious stage actors such as King and Delroy. The movie was marketed as a comedy film with these comics billed as "America's funniest clowns."
[edit] Preservation
The version of the film released in the United States, late in 1930, survives intact. A print is at the Museum of Modern Art, and is in the Turner Classic Movies film library. The complete soundtrack also survives on Vitaphone disks.
