You Know What Sailors Are (1954 film)

You Know What Sailors Are
Directed byKen Annakin
Written byPeter Rogers
Based onnovel Sylvester by Edward Hyams
Produced byPeter Rogers
Julian Wintle
StarringDonald Sinden
Akim Tamiroff
Sarah Lawson
CinematographyReginald H. Wyer
Edited byAlfred Roome
Music byMalcolm Arnold
Production
company
Distributed byGeneral Film Distributors
Release date
  • 9 February 1954 (1954-02-09)
Running time
89 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget$250,000[1] or £190,000[2]

You Know What Sailors Are is a 1954 British comedy film directed by Ken Annakin and starring Donald Sinden, Michael Hordern, Bill Kerr, Dora Bryan and Akim Tamiroff.[3] The screenplay by Peter Rogers was based on the 1951 novel Sylvester by Edward Hyams. It was shot at Pinewood Studios and on location around the Isle of Portland. The film's sets were designed by the art director George Provis.

Plot

Three British naval officers out on a drunken spree attach a pram and a pawnbroker's sign to the stern of a foreign naval ship. The next morning, an officer misinterprets the pram and sign as state of the art, top-secret radar equipment. Instantly, the British navy decrees that their ships be fitted with the same device. Thereafter, bureaucratic misunderstandings escalate into a major international incident.

Cast

Original novel

Edward Hyams novel Sylvester was published in 1951. The Observer called it "extremely funny."[4] Film rights were bought by Peter Rogers.[5]

Production

Ken Annakin had been idle under his contract with Rank when his old mentor Sydney Box suggested he collaborate with Rogers who was working on "a crazy comedy set in an Arabian Nights’ kind of country. Most of the action took place around a sheik's desert palace. 'I’m sure the two of you together can make a glamorous, risque, escapist comedy-adventure,' said Sydney."[6]

Peter Rogers says he wrote 14 drafts of the script before Earl St John, head of production at Rank, agreed to make the film. Rogers said in his biography he wanted Kenneth More to star but St John refused to let him play any of the three male leads (Genevieve had been made but was yet to be released) so Donald Sinden was cast instead.[5] Kenneth More wrote in his memoirs that he wanted to make the movie but he was offered the same fee as Genevieve and his agent asked for more, which Rank refused to pay, so he declined.[7] Annakin wrote in his memoirs that neither Kenneth More or Dirk Bogarde wanted to play the lead so they cast Sinden who " had a good sense of comedy and timing, but it put us in the Second Division, so to speak!" However the director liked working with Bill Kerr and Akim Tamiroff.[8]

Peter Rogers did the bulk of producing. However he says Julian Wintle was under contract to Rank and Earl St John and Ken Annakin agreed for the film to be produced through Wintle's company. This annoyed Rogers who vowed never to work with Annakin again.[5]

Filming started on 12 June 1953. The working titles of the film were Sylvester, 998 and Sailors Have a Way With Them.[9]

Annakin wrote "As though to punish the Rank Organisation and to get even with them for not having given me a big movie such as The Million Dollar Bank Note... or The Purple Plain... I demanded the right to build the most fanciful Arabian palace, with gilded arches and white fluted columns, such as the Pinewood construction shop had never been asked for!"[10] Production designer Peter Lamont called this "the biggest set ever been built at Pinewood and I think the budget came in at £29,000, and everybody almost shit themselves."[11]

Reception

Annakin said "the film did good average business in the UK... but for me You Know What Sailors Are stands out as the movie on which I discovered that farce is not my strongest talent! I know how to build scenes to release the ‘big laugh’, but I prefer to rely on sly humour, and on comedy arising from the observation of the funny things people do in real life."[12]

More wrote, "When I went to the film, and saw how the book had been messed around, I offered up a prayer of thanks that I hadn’t been in it after all. I think poor Donald did extremely well in the circumstances."[7]

Critical reception

Sight and Sound called it a "lively comedy aimed at bureaucratic gullibility ; palls only when it sets out to be piquant."[13]

Variety wrote "Lush Technicolor, luscious girls in an eastern harem and a neatly sustained joke about a naval hoax are the main boxoffice ingredients of this new British comedy which looks set for healthy returns in the home market."[14]

TV Guide writes, "beautiful women fill the screen at frequent intervals in this amiable comedy";[15] and AllMovie writes, "You Know What Sailors Are top-bills Akim Tamiroff as the president of a mythical Foreign country, but the film belongs to Donald Sinden as the well-meaning young officer who precipitates the whole affair."[16] Filmink argued the movie has "an endearing desire to please and technical competency" but "lack something."[17]

References

  1. ^ Annakin p 72
  2. ^ "Lovely? Of course they are". Sunday Mirror. 26 July 1953. p. 10.
  3. ^ "You Know What Sailors Are! (1953)". BFI. Archived from the original on 12 July 2012.
  4. ^ "New books". The Observer. 18 November 1951. p. 7.
  5. ^ a b c Bright, Morris (2000). Mr. Carry On : the life and work of Peter Rogers. pp. 67–69. ISBN 9780563551836.
  6. ^ Annakin p 70
  7. ^ a b More, Kenneth (1959). Happy Go Lucky. Hale. p. 136.
  8. ^ Annakin p 71
  9. ^ "New romantic team". Sunday Sun. 31 May 1953. p. 6.
  10. ^ Annakin p 71
  11. ^ Frith, Paul (28 July 2018). "Interview with Peter Lamont". British Entertainment History Project.
  12. ^ Annakin p 72
  13. ^ "A guide to current films". Sight and Sound. April–June 1954. p. 2.
  14. ^ "You Know What Sailors Are". Variety. 17 February 1954. p. 6.
  15. ^ "You Know What Sailors Are". TVGuide.com.
  16. ^ Hal Erickson. "You Know What Sailors Are (1954) – Ken Annakin – Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related – AllMovie". AllMovie.
  17. ^ Vagg, Stephen (30 May 2025). "Forgotten British Studios: Group Film Productions". Filmink. Retrieved 30 May 2025.

Citation

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