As the other reviewers have noted, there's not a lot of dramatic value to be had here. But it is fun to see the four main stars (Armstrong, Reeves, Anderson, and Orr, all of whom were ubiquitous in films & TV during the '30s through the '60s) kicking around together. Even more significantly, this little propaganda quicky from 1940, in beautiful technicolor, shows San Diego naval base as it actually was at that time (so does "Dive Bomber," come to think of it, made just a little later by the same studio and with two of the same cast members in it). The opening and closing scenes featuring the USS Pennsylvania are poignant, however, because that very ship was at Pearl Harbor (in drydock) on 12/7/41. And her only sister ship was the USS Arizona.
Meet the Fleet
1940
Action / Drama / War
Meet the Fleet
1940
Action / Drama / War
Keywords: short filmpatriotism
Plot summary
Three recruits land in Navy boot camp in San Diego: Potter from Kansas, wealthy Benson (who has experience with yachts),and dirt-poor Dan. Kansas gets in trouble for not having his cover. Dan has color-vision problems. The company is sent on a training mission to Hawaii, though Dan is sent instead to the Medical Officer, apparently to be discharged, which plunges him into despair. But the Navy isn't quite done with Dan.
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Interesting time capsule
Pearl Harbor happened because chief petty officer Bill had a crush . . .
. . . on the North Island Naval Boot Camp's librarian, MEET THE FLEET documents. You see, this tragic tale (based upon actual events) depicts Bill Jennings, the chief, having an on-again, off-again thing going with Joanne, the librarian. But with the U.S. Navy being such a hotbed of raw talent, Joanne insists on remaining free to "play the field" of each new, green recruiting class. Just months before the Japanese sneak attack on Hawaii, Joanne takes a shine to trainee Dan. Normally, this wouldn't present much of a problem, given how open-minded the Navy and chief petty officers always are. But the fly in the ointment here in MEET THE FLEET is that Dan has illegally enlisted, knowing that he is colorblind. Now, if the three colors of civilian highway traffic lights were arranged in ever-changing, random order, colorblind folks would be just as unlikely as totally sightless people to be awarded drivers' licenses. Since Navy life is full of random life-or-death color signs and signals, the colorblind need not enlist. But knowing how sweet Joanne is on Dan (and possibly anticipating a Menage A Trois),Bill lets Dan slip into Pearl Harbor with his graduating class through the back door. The narrator concludes, "Then one night, when you're (that is, the recruit) standing watch out there all alone . . . ," which--disastrously--is exactly where Dan is Dec. 7, 1941, a little while AFTER this ill-fated "recruiting tool" was released across America. Dan mistakes swarms of RED circled Japanese attack planes passing over his lonely head for an expected delivery of new model GREEN Logoed American aircraft. The rest is History!
Recruits go through basic training at San Diego Naval Base...
Strictly cornball stuff.
I went through training at San Diego and the only realism between basic training and this film are the background shots actually filmed at the San Diego base.
The story is a contrived bit of nonsense about three recruits (WILLIAM T. ORR, GEORGE REEVES and HERBERT ANDERSON),who are supervised by Chief Petty Officer ROBERT ARMSTRONG.
Predictably, Orr--who wants to see the ocean badly--gets seasick on his first outing on a boat--and the others are standard stock characters. Anderson is a guy who memorized the color chart (he's color blind) so he could enter the service. Reeves is your All-American boy.
Most of it is on the light side, played for laughs, and it was probably used as a good recruiting film for the U.S. Navy at the time. Excellent color photography and some good glimpses of guys undergoing physical training--but the story is sheer nonsense.
Worth a look if you're interested in training films but not much else can be said about it. The actors do well enough with sub-standard material.