Although based on a musical, it used only two of the original Rodgers and Hart songs from the Broadway hit, along with original songs, including three by Oscar Levant and Sidney Clare. An early part-color feature film with a Technicolor insert, this film was Irene Dunne's film debut.
Plot
Chick Evans is a Marine private in Honolulu, Hawaii. He falls for society girl Delphine Witherspoon, and begins to scheme as to how to win her over. His first plan involves impersonating an officer in order to get invited to a society party. However, when his Marine buddies decide to crash the party as well, his real rank is revealed, and so having the opposite effect on Delphine as he had planned.
Despondent, he bares his soul to a mutual friend, Edna, who arranges to have the two reunited on Delphine's yacht at sea. However, this meeting goes terribly wrong as well, and a desperate Chick convinces the yacht's captain to fake a shipwreck in order to give him time to win Delphine over. Unfortunately, a real storm arises and the ship is actually wrecked, coming to rest on a desert island. While they are on the island, Chick's persistence with Delphine pays off. Not only that, on their return to Honolulu, he is hailed as a hero and promoted to captain.
A copy of the film survives in the Warner Bros. film vault. The musical comedy on which this film was based, Present Arms, ran from April through September 1928 at Lew Fields' Mansfield Theatre (currently the Brooks Atkinson Theatre). Produced by Lew Fields, it had music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart, with a book by Herbert Fields. It starred and was choreographed by Busby Berkeley.[4]
