Poseidon Quickies: Prepare to Get "Pulver"-ized!

Oh, sure... I had heard of the 1964 movie Ensign Pulver, a sequel to the monster hit Mister Roberts (1955), with different actors and mostly different characters, to boot.  However, it's sort of obscure and I never sought it out (I haven't even seen Mister Roberts if you want the whole truth!) I also got it a bit mixed up with things like The Wackiest Ship in the Army (1960) or All Hands on Deck (1961) and many other hijinks-laden flicks set on military sea vessels. But recently, a P.U. reader mentioned the movie to me and I felt the need to look it up. There was a nice little tidal wave of South Pacific (1958) style sailor beefcake to be found! And on top of that, there were enough familiar faces in it to fill out the famed puzzle board on Hollywood Squares. 

Inhabiting the role which won Jack Lemmon an Oscar is young Robert Walker Jr. I don't have to see Mister Roberts to know that there is precious little similarity between the two men...!

Whenever I see Walker Jr, though, I'm struck by his strong resemblance to his gifted father, the dynamic, but very troubled, Robert Walker. The father is immortal for his work as a devious killer in Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951.)  Walker Sr, having never recovered from losing his wife Jennifer Jones to David O. Selznick and having developed an alcohol addiction, died at 32 the same year Strangers was released. He'd been given a sedative which interacted badly with the alcohol in his system.

Aaannnyway... Pulver gets off to a rather promising start when we meet a bunch of sailors all piled up onto one another, singing a song. Dead center is a young James Farentino. Below him, to the left, is George Lindsey, who would later gain fame as Goober on The Andy Griffith Show. And then to the right is the gorgeous puss of one of our all-time faves, Dick Gautier!

Somehow at some point, the guys forgot exactly where they'd been because here Gautier is in the row behind Farentino and Lindsey where before he was directly next to them!

We then see the cramped/cozy sleeping quarters of the men, stacked up like cartons of eggs at a grocery store...!

Enjoying a bit more privacy (not to mention bed stability) are these two. On the bottom bunk, a young Larry Hagman and on top (being woken by a couple of kicks) is Peter Marshall. See? I really meant it when I said that we could do an ep of Hollywood Squares with these actors!

Hagman, even with all that J.R. Ewing bed-hopping on Dallas, rarely did any beefcake in his projects, but here he is in a pair of boxers. And popping in that porthole is none other than Jack Nicholson!

The director, Josh Logan (who also did South Pacific), was noted for including plenty of male eye candy in his stage and screen projects. This sailor's get-up on the left as he is taking on loads (of cargo) was very sexy.

Here is Farentino up close again, with Gautier on the right. There is nearly always a shimmering, well-built seaman on display in the picture.

Less conventionally handsome are the principle stars Walter Matthau and Burl Ives. Matthau is the principled ship's doctor while Ives is the despotic captain, being treated here for an injury to his rump. Nicholson, still a few years away from breakout success, had to perform this sequence, staring at Ives' rear-end, as part of his Hollywood dues...!

We still aren't done spotting the stars, though. There's cutie pie singer Tommy Sands, who as was too often the case chewed the scenery to shreds as a sailor whose young daughter is killed before he has ever laid eyes on her.

And lookit...! A young James Coco in his movie debut, slimmer than you've likely ever seen him.

Below deck in the laundry room, an impromptu party gets way out of line.

Gautier's pants are painted on and many of the other guys' shirts are falling off.

Then there's the day that interim captain Gerald S. O'Laughlin relaxes some of the stringent rules and reinstates swimming off the side of the ship and the right to go shirtless on deck.

This announcement brings about all sorts of acrobatic cavorting from dancing to flips to who knows what...

One sailor gets so caught up in the frivolity that he grabs the pants pockets of Lindsey's dungarees and yanks them off.

This reveals one of Lindsey's bare ass cheeks with a tattoo on it! Raise your hand if you ever expected to see Goober's bare behind in a 1964 movie...!

Yes, Mr. Logan liked to celebrate the male form. I don't care how many times he was married.

Late in the proceedings, we meet a shipwreck survivor named Stretch, played by actor Robert Matek. This is his only credited role except for a guest part on The Wild Wild West, but he certainly made an impression in his shredded khakis!

Walker (along with new galpal Millie Perkins) has to perform an emergency appendectomy on the island, surrounded by natives, while being coached over the radio...! But I found Stretch more fascinating.

During this climactic situation, the sailors are all piled next to each other, listening to the play-by-play over the loudspeaker.

Depending on your point of view, this is either male bonding or toxic masculinity, but it's nevertheless appealing to the eyes as far as I'm concerned.

As good news comes their way, more celebration continues. Check out the tan line on the guy in the blue vest.

Seriously...!

The End!