All Ashore
Encyclopedia
All Ashore is a 1953 Technicolor
musical comedy
film directed by Richard Quine
. It is the second of Mickey Rooney
's three films for Columbia Pictures
that was produced by Jonie Taps, directed by Richard Quine
and written by Blake Edwards
. In the tradition of MGM's Anchors Aweigh
and On the Town
, the film tells the stories of three sailors (Rooney, crooner
Dick Haymes
and dancer Ray McDonald) on shore leave
on Santa Catalina Island, California
where much of the film was shot. A former MGM contract star, Ray McDonald was married to Peggy Ryan at the time with All Ashore being the last film for both of them.
s have returned from Korea on the battle cruiser USS Rochester
where they are due for shore leave in California. Skip and Joe have no money due to losses in a crap game
but their shipmate Francis "Moby" Dickerson has $300 he won in poker
. Skip and Joe have constantly taken advantage of Moby throughout their cruise and beg some money off him that Moby cannot refuse them. Moby wishes to spend his leave on Santa Catalina but his shipmates take an unwilling Moby to an off limits clip joint
bar where bargirl
s and a bartender
drug
and rob them of all their money.
Waking up broke and guilty but wiser, Joe is determined to get Moby to Santa Catalina by using his scheming ability. Joe arranges their passage and $5 dollars each in exchange for Moby working on the ship. Skip meets dancer Gay Knight where an impromptu dance session earns them some more money that entertained passengers throw at them. Gay takes them to her trailer park
where the three have enough money for two of them to rent a cabin; Moby has to sneak in at night and sleep at the floor. Skip arranges more money and meals for a second day by having Moby work as a waiter in a night club. Moby meets Nancy, the daughter of the trailer park owner when she hits him in the head with a horseshoe, but Skip later sweeps her off her feet and takes her for his own girl.
After entering a wrong cabin and unsuccessfully hiding from the two women living there, Moby becomes further dejected when he feels out of place accompanying his shipmates and their girlfriends to the beach. The unwanted Moby decides to return to the mainland. Having to wait half an hour for the next ship, Moby's luck changes when he meets Jane whose motorboat is not working. In fixing the engine, Moby is thrown in the water with Jane taking Moby to her father's yacht where his uniform can dry out. Jane invites Moby to a party with Jane's father the Commodore inviting Moby to sail with them to the mainland. On the way to the party Jane's boat fails again with both being thrown into the water as the boat comes to life and sails off without them.
Moby gets his confidence back by saving Jane who cannot swim and using his navigation skills to get them back to safety in Avalon
. Jane's grateful father throws a party for Moby where he turns the tables on his scheming shipmates when the sheriff, who had arrested Joe and Skip turn them over to Moby where he has them fanning him and Jane in the manner of slaves.
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
musical comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
film directed by Richard Quine
Richard Quine
Richard Quine was an American stage, film, and radio actor and film director.Quine was born in Detroit. He made his Broadway debut in the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical Very Warm for May in 1939 and appeared in My Sister Eileen the following year...
. It is the second of Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
's three films for Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
that was produced by Jonie Taps, directed by Richard Quine
Richard Quine
Richard Quine was an American stage, film, and radio actor and film director.Quine was born in Detroit. He made his Broadway debut in the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical Very Warm for May in 1939 and appeared in My Sister Eileen the following year...
and written by Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards was an American film director, screenwriter and producer.Edwards' career began in the 1940s as an actor, but he soon turned to writing radio scripts at Columbia Pictures...
. In the tradition of MGM's Anchors Aweigh
Anchors Aweigh (film)
Anchors Aweigh is a 1945 American musical comedy film directed by George Sidney in which two sailors go on a four-day shore leave in Hollywood, accompanied by music and song, meet an aspiring young singer and try to help her get an audition at MGM...
and On the Town
On the Town (film)
On the Town is a 1949 musical film with music by Leonard Bernstein and Roger Edens and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. It is an adaptation of the Broadway stage musical of the same name produced in 1944, although many changes in script and score were made from the original stage...
, the film tells the stories of three sailors (Rooney, crooner
Crooner
Crooner is an American epithet given to male singers of pop standards, mostly from the Great American Songbook, either backed by a full orchestra, a big band or by a piano. Originally it was an ironic term denoting an emphatically sentimental, often emotional singing style made possible by the use...
Dick Haymes
Dick Haymes
Richard Benjamin "Dick" Haymes was an Argentine actor and one of the most popular male vocalists of the 1940s and early 1950s. He was the older brother of Bob Haymes, who was an actor, television host, and songwriter....
and dancer Ray McDonald) on shore leave
Shore leave
Shore leave is the leave that professional sailors get to spend on dry land. It is culturally infamous for its excess. Sailors without family obligations and with basic lodging needs provided aboard ship may spend their wages for the journey in a brief period of extravagance ashore and return to...
on Santa Catalina Island, California
Santa Catalina Island, California
Santa Catalina Island, often called Catalina Island, or just Catalina, is a rocky island off the coast of the U.S. state of California. The island is long and across at its greatest width. The island is located about south-southwest of Los Angeles, California. The highest point on the island is...
where much of the film was shot. A former MGM contract star, Ray McDonald was married to Peggy Ryan at the time with All Ashore being the last film for both of them.
Plot
Three petty officerPetty Officer
A petty officer is a non-commissioned officer in many navies and is given the NATO rank denotion OR-6. They are equal in rank to sergeant, British Army and Royal Air Force. A Petty Officer is superior in rank to Leading Rate and subordinate to Chief Petty Officer, in the case of the British Armed...
s have returned from Korea on the battle cruiser USS Rochester
USS Rochester (CA-124)
The third USS Rochester , an , was laid down 29 May 1944 by Bethlehem Steel Co., Quincy, Mass.; launched 28 August 1945; sponsored by Mrs. M. Herbert Eisenhart, wife of the president of Bausch & Lomb Optical Co., Rochester, N.Y.; and commissioned 20 December 1946 at the Boston Navy Yard, Capt...
where they are due for shore leave in California. Skip and Joe have no money due to losses in a crap game
Craps
Craps is a dice game in which players place wagers on the outcome of the roll, or a series of rolls, of a pair of dice. Players may wager money against each other or a bank...
but their shipmate Francis "Moby" Dickerson has $300 he won in poker
Poker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
. Skip and Joe have constantly taken advantage of Moby throughout their cruise and beg some money off him that Moby cannot refuse them. Moby wishes to spend his leave on Santa Catalina but his shipmates take an unwilling Moby to an off limits clip joint
Clip joint
A clip joint or fleshpot is an establishment, usually a strip club or entertainment bar, typically one claiming to offer adult entertainment or bottle service, in which customers are tricked into paying money and receive poor goods or services, or none, in return...
bar where bargirl
Bargirl
A bargirl is a woman who works as a hostess or dancer in bars to provide company or sexual services to patrons; the exact nature of services and varieties of bar varying by country/region. In most cases, these cater mostly to male clients, although in some cases women are also clients...
s and a bartender
Bartender
A bartender is a person who serves beverages behind a counter in a bar, pub, tavern, or similar establishment. A bartender, in short, "tends the bar". The term barkeeper may carry a connotation of being the bar's owner...
drug
Mickey Finn (drugs)
A Mickey Finn, is a slang term for a drink laced with a drug given to someone without his knowledge in order to incapacitate him...
and rob them of all their money.
Waking up broke and guilty but wiser, Joe is determined to get Moby to Santa Catalina by using his scheming ability. Joe arranges their passage and $5 dollars each in exchange for Moby working on the ship. Skip meets dancer Gay Knight where an impromptu dance session earns them some more money that entertained passengers throw at them. Gay takes them to her trailer park
Trailer park
A trailer park is a semi-permanent or permanent area for mobile homes or travel trailers. The main reasons for living in such trailer parks are the often lower cost compared to other housing, and the ability to move to a new area more quickly and easily, for example when changing jobs to another...
where the three have enough money for two of them to rent a cabin; Moby has to sneak in at night and sleep at the floor. Skip arranges more money and meals for a second day by having Moby work as a waiter in a night club. Moby meets Nancy, the daughter of the trailer park owner when she hits him in the head with a horseshoe, but Skip later sweeps her off her feet and takes her for his own girl.
After entering a wrong cabin and unsuccessfully hiding from the two women living there, Moby becomes further dejected when he feels out of place accompanying his shipmates and their girlfriends to the beach. The unwanted Moby decides to return to the mainland. Having to wait half an hour for the next ship, Moby's luck changes when he meets Jane whose motorboat is not working. In fixing the engine, Moby is thrown in the water with Jane taking Moby to her father's yacht where his uniform can dry out. Jane invites Moby to a party with Jane's father the Commodore inviting Moby to sail with them to the mainland. On the way to the party Jane's boat fails again with both being thrown into the water as the boat comes to life and sails off without them.
Moby gets his confidence back by saving Jane who cannot swim and using his navigation skills to get them back to safety in Avalon
Avalon, California
Avalon, or Avalon Bay, is the only incorporated city on Santa Catalina Island of the California Channel Islands, and the southernmost city in Los Angeles County. Besides Avalon, the only other center of population on the island is the small unincorporated town of Two Harbors...
. Jane's grateful father throws a party for Moby where he turns the tables on his scheming shipmates when the sheriff, who had arrested Joe and Skip turn them over to Moby where he has them fanning him and Jane in the manner of slaves.
Cast
- Mickey RooneyMickey RooneyMickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
as Francis 'Moby' Dickerson - Dick HaymesDick HaymesRichard Benjamin "Dick" Haymes was an Argentine actor and one of the most popular male vocalists of the 1940s and early 1950s. He was the older brother of Bob Haymes, who was an actor, television host, and songwriter....
as Joe Carter - Peggy RyanPeggy RyanMargaret O'Rene "Peggy" Ryan was an American dancer, best known for starring in a series of movie musicals at Universal Pictures with Donald O'Connor and Gloria Jean....
as Gay Knight - Ray McDonald as Skip Edwards
- Barbara BatesBarbara BatesBarbara Bates was an American actress best known for her role as Phoebe in the 1950 drama All About Eve.-Early life:...
as Jane Stanton - Jody LawranceJody LawranceJody Lawrance , whose birth name was Nona Josephine Goddard , was an American actor who starred in many Hollywood adventures during the '50s through the early '60s.-Biography:...
as Nancy