The plot has Roberts repeatedly pushing to be transferred from his supply ship to another actively fighting the Japanese. His requests are invariably turned down by the Captain, because Roberts is excellent at his job. Roberts is forced to cut an unfavorable deal with the Captain in order to obtain brief shore liberty for the crew.
How others will see it. "Mister Roberts" had been a long-running play on Broadway, with Henry Fonda also playing the title character there. At the 1948 Tony Awards, it won five trophies, including Best Play and Best Actor (Fonda). The role kept Ford out of theatrical movies for seven years. The theatrical version was as commercially successful as the play, claiming the second-biggest U.S. box office of any film during 1955.
Mister Roberts also had success at the Academy Awards, securing a Best Picture nomination and a win for Jack Lemmon as Best Supporting Actor. It was Lemmon's first Oscar nomination, though he would have seven more as Best Actor through 1983, winning again for Save the Tiger.
Today at imdb.com, Mister Roberts has a high user rating of 7.6 out of 10, and a respectable 20K user votes. This compares favorably with the mere 528 user votes at imdb.com for Lemmon's immediately preceding film, Three for the Show (1955).
The user reviews for Mister Roberts praise the four A-list leads and the Greatest Generation's service during World War II. Some mention that they liked the play better than the film, an attitude also admitted later by Henry Fonda.
Trivia. Mister Roberts was the final film of William Powell, who believed he was getting too old to act. He lived another 29 years.
Jack Lemmon was actually an ensign in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
During the production, Director John Ford reportedly sucker punched Henry Fonda in the face. Ford's alcoholism allegedly led to health issues requiring his replacement by Mervyn LeRoy.
How I felt about it. The subplot of the tropical tree tossed overboard is reminiscent of the breadfruit trees tossed by the crew of The Bounty after their mutiny. The film ends with Pulver boasting to the Captain that he tossed the tree overboard, omitting the logical outcome of that action; Pulver's court-martial and reduction in rank to seaman.
The plot is predictable from start to finish. For example, anyone who has seen a film before knows that Roberts will discover his typed letter to the Captain that Pulver has hidden in his bunk. Non-officers among the crew are stereotypes, a mix of boyish enthusiasm, hero worship, cartoonish masculinity, mugging, and stupidity.
Also overplayed is the captain, the bad cop to Roberts' good cop. While Captain Bligh had some redeemable qualities as a real-life figure, James Cagney's fictional captain is a cartoonish figure not credible for his position.
I have to say that the film not only did not make me laugh, it never even made me smile once. Especially embarrassing are the shots with crewmen nearly drowning in detergent suds.