MISTER ROBERTS

'''Mister Roberts''' is a novel, a Tony Award–winning play, and a 1955 Academy Award–nominated film. The title character, a naval Lieutenant Junior Grade, stands up for his crew against the petty tyranny of his ship's commanding officer during World War II. The novel was written by Thomas Heggen, who co-wrote the stage play with Joshua Logan, the play's director. Logan wrote the screenplay with Frank S. Nugent.

Contents

The novel

The play

The film

Cast

Trivia

External links

The novel

Heggen based his novel on his experiences aboard the USS ''Virgo'' (AKA-20) ([1]) in the South Pacific during World War II. The novel started out as a collection of short stories. Broadway producer Leland Hayward bought the rights to the novel with the aim of producing it as a play and hired Heggen to adapt it. Logan later re-wrote most of the play, in collaboration with Heggen. The play was a well received and a major hit. It won the 1948 Tony Award for Best Play.
Nearly all of the action takes place on a backwater cargo ship, the USS ''Reluctant'' that sails, as written in the play, "from apathy to tedium with occasional sidetrips to monotony and ennui."

The play

The play opened on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre on February 18, 1948. The stage version starred Henry Fonda, David Wayne, Robert Keith and Jocelyn Brando, who replaced Eva Marie Saint before the show opened. Fonda's brother-in-law, William Harrigan, played the Captain. The original production also featured Harvey Lembeck, Ralph Meeker, Steven Hill and Murray Hamilton. Fonda got out of a Hollywood film contract in order to star in the Broadway theatre stage production. Fonda won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. It ran for 1,157 performances.
Tyrone Power starred in the London company. John Forsythe appeared in a national touring production. Many actors began their career in various productions and touring companies. Fess Parker began his show business career in the play, in 1951.

The film

The film starred Henry Fonda as the title character. Interestingly, Fonda was not the original choice to star in the film version and was only hired because director John Ford insisted on it; the studio thought Fonda had been on stage and off the screen so long that he was no longer a movie box office draw.
Also featured were James Cagney as Captain Morton, William Powell (in his last feature film) as "Doc", Jack Lemmon as Ensign Pulver, Betsy Palmer, Ward Bond, Philip Carey, Nick Adams, Ken Curtis, Harry Carey, Jr. and Martin Milner. The screenplay was written by Joshua Logan and Frank S. Nugent. The movie was directed by John Ford, Mervyn LeRoy and Joshua Logan (uncredited). Ford was replaced by LeRoy after difficulties with Fonda.
The film was nominated for Best Picture and Best Sound, Recording Oscars; Jack Lemmon received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film was William Powell's last movie, although he died decades later, in 1984. Powell was offered many chances to return to the screen but refused, apparently believing that 35 years of film acting was enough.

Cast

Cast	Character
Henry Fonda	Lt. (j.g.) Douglas A. 'Doug' Roberts
James Cagney	Captain Morton
William Powell	Lieutenant 'Doc'
Jack Lemmon	Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver
Betsy Palmer	Lt. Ann Girard
Ward Bond	Chief Boatswain's Mate Dowdy
Philip Carey	Mannion (billed as Phil Carey)
Nick Adams	Seaman Reber
Perry Lopez	Seaman Rodrigues
Ken Curtis	Yeoman 3rd Class Dolan
Robert Roark	Insigna
Harry Carey, Jr.	Stefanowski
Patrick Wayne	Bookser (billed as Pat Wayne)
Frank Aletter	Gerhart
Tige Andrews	Wiley (billed as Tiger Andrews)
Martin Milner	Shore Patrol Ensign

Trivia

★ ''Mister Roberts'' was followed by a film sequel, ''Ensign Pulver'', in 1964, with Robert Walker Jr. taking over the Lemmon role. It also starred Burl Ives as Captain Morton, Walter Matthau, Larry Hagman and Jack Nicholson.

★ Thomas Heggen, suffering from depression, committed suicide, in 1949, just a year after the play opened.

★ The film was remade for television in 1984 as a live telecast, an extremely rare procedure for that period, and starred Robert Hays, Kevin Bacon, Charles Durning, Marilu Henner, Howard Hesseman, and Joe Pantoliano. The show was directed by Melvin Bernhardt. There was also a short-lived NBC television series in 1965, featuring Roger Smith, Steve Harmon and Richard X. Slattery.

★ In his 1982 autobiography, ''My Life'', Henry Fonda stated that (in his opinion) as good as the movie was, the play was even better.

★ L. Ron Hubbard claimed (without much evidence) that ''Mister Roberts'' was based on him and his career aboard the combat support ship USS ''Algol''. However, Hubbard never served aboard ''Algol'' in a combat area, transferring to shore duty before it sailed for Okinawa. (Another possible source for Mister Roberts is Mack McKinnie, who was a big band musician before the war and served as a naval officer in the Pacific.)

★ The vessel which played the role of USS RELUCTANT (or "the Bucket") in the movie was in fact a light cargo vessel or AKL which was not even a USN vessel at all in WWII. It was actually a US Army FS class cargo vessel several of which were transferred to the Navy after WWII ended. As it was , an AKL carried a much smaller crew that the USS VIRGO which Thomas Heggen served on during the war. In the movie, Mr. Roberts says to Doc that there are "65 men" aboard which would have been far too many for an AKL. Also, the crew when going below to their berthing compartment are shown in the movie to be descending into the cargo hold. It is also reported that the USN AKL that was used to film the exterior scenes in the movie was the USS HEWELL (AKL-14)

★ A surviving WWII crew member of the USS Virgo said that Virgo crew member and novel writer Thomas Heggen himself was psychologically a combination of Ensign Pulver and Lt.(jg) Roberts.

External links

★ (film)

★ (TV show - 1965)

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