1954 film
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.[2] 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.
Production
Ken Annakin had been idle under his contract with Rank when his old mentor Sydney Box suggested he collaborate with Peter 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 glamourous, risque, escapist comedy-adventure,” said Sydney."[3]
Peter Rogers bought the screen rights to Edward Hyams' book and says he wrote 14 drafts before Earl St John agreed to make the film. Rogers wanted Kenneth More to star but St John refused (Genevieve had yet to be released) so Donald Sinden was cast instead. Annakin said Sinden " had a good sense of comedy and timing, but it put us in the Second Division, so to speak!" However he liked Bill Kerr and Akim Tamiroff.[4]
Ken Annakin arranged for Julian Wintle to produce which annoyed Rogers.[5]
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."[6]
Critical reception
TV Guide writes, "beautiful women fill the screen at frequent intervals in this amiable comedy";[7] 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."[8]
