Winning War On The Buddy System

Bill Boyd and Crew Sign On a Suicide Fleet (1931)

An RKO-Pathé product, being vehicle for two-fister Bill Boyd and sidekicks (both irritating) Robert Armstrong and James Gleason. They join the navy to please Ginger Rogers, for whom I'd not cross a street, let alone sign on for WWI (never a fan of hers). There's Coney Island stuff for opener reels and German U-boats to finish, these fillup of 87 minutes that pass like twice same. Picture the following: Frank Reicher, Captain Englehorn of King Kong, is a hynie ship's captain taken off board, his identity assumed by to-be Carl Denham (Armstrong). Seems many RKO streams fed into Kong. There is surprising lot of German-speak minus subtitles, some of it going on for minutes. Ship-and-sub stuff is bigger scale than expected --- was Suicide Fleet positioned to be a special at some point? Consider how many service pix there were with rival pals for whatever love interest --- try counting, let alone watching, them all. Suppose it was Flagg-Quirt that spread the contagion, which would last right through another World War and into the 50's. If a director hung on long enough, like Raoul Walsh with Marines, Let's Go, it could even drag unto the 60's.