Hit the Deck

Hit the Deck is a 1955 American musical comedy film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Roy Rowland and produced by Joe Pasternak, about three sailors on shore leave in San Francisco who find romance and trouble. It is the second film version of the 1927 Broadway musical Hit the Deck, with music by Vincent Youmans, and it draws on Hubert Osborne's 1922 play Shore Leave.^{1 • 2}

From stage to screen

The stage musical Hit the Deck opened at the Belasco Theatre in New York on 25 April 1927 and ran 352 performances; composer Vincent Youmans coproduced the show to keep creative control over his score.^{2 • 6} Its ultimate source, Osborne's play Shore Leave, had already been adapted for the screen twice before MGM's version: as a 1925 silent film distributed by First National Pictures, and as RKO's 1930 musical Hit the Deck. The same play also became the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film Follow the Fleet (1936), with an entirely different Irving Berlin score.^{1 • 7}

MGM purchased the rights to the stage musical from RKO in 1947, according to a May 1949 Hollywood Reporter item, and Pasternak began developing the adaptation in early 1953. Early plans changed considerably: Martin Rackin and Herbert Baker were reported writing a screenplay whose contribution to the final film has not been determined, George Murphy, Bobby Van, and Vera-Ellen appeared in pre-production casting news but not in the film, and a July 1953 report said Jane Powell would be dropped from the cast before she was retained.¹

Unlike the 1930 RKO film, which was a faithful version of the stage musical, the 1955 film used the original songs with a new plot and characters.^{8 • 9}

Music

The score is mostly Vincent Youmans. Seven numbers were retained from the stage show: "Hallelujah!," "Join the Navy," "A Kiss or Two," "Loo Loo," "Lucky Bird," "Sometimes I'm Happy," and "Why, Oh Why," along with "Keepin' Myself for You." Two other Youmans hits were interpolated, "I Know That You Know" (from Oh, Please) and "More Than You Know" (from Great Day!), and the score was filled out with the Italian song "Ciribiribin" and "The Lady from the Bayou," built on an unused Youmans melody.¹⁰

Choreographer Hermes Pan, known for his work on Fred Astaire's films with Ginger Rogers, staged the musical numbers, including a barefoot tap-dance for Ann Miller and a fun-house sequence for Debbie Reynolds and Russ Tamblyn.^{2 • 11} Russ Tamblyn's singing was dubbed by Rex Dennis and Clark Burroughs.¹⁰

The original soundtrack album was a 33-minute monophonic LP on MGM Records. Rhino and Turner Entertainment reissued it on CD on 21 November 2000, expanded by more than 25 minutes with orchestral and dance music, reprises, and an outtake of "Dormi Dormi" by Kay Armen and Vic Damone, and presented in true stereo for the first time.¹⁰

Reception and place in the MGM musical

Contemporary response was lukewarm. John McCarten wrote in The New Yorker that the film was enlivened by the Youmans tunes and some tolerable dance routines but was "grievously short on comedy" with a weak book.⁴ Later assessments have been mixed: the film holds a 67% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes from six reviews and a 53% audience score, with TV Guide crediting the outstanding cast and production numbers and the New York Times judging that it had not improved with age.³ AllMusic's history of the soundtrack concludes that despite the elaborate production the film was not a big hit, probably because it simply came along too late.¹⁰

The film is often read as a late entry in two fading traditions, the MGM all-star musical and the sailor-on-leave musical. Although Powell had just scored a hit with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), Hit the Deck marked the end of her MGM career; with changing styles and budget cutbacks, the studio let her go, and she made only one more musical, The Girl Most Likely (1957). Ann Miller and Vic Damone were also near the end of their MGM tenures.¹¹ Russ Tamblyn went on to tom thumb (1958) and the Oscar-winning West Side Story (1961) before moving into character work.¹¹

The 1930 RKO version has its own place in film-preservation lore: according to one film-history account, the last known copy of that film was destroyed in a fire in the 1950s.¹²

References

1. Hit the Deck (1955), AFI Catalog of Feature Films
2. Hit the Deck (1955), AFI Catalog, literary sources
3. Hit the Deck, Rotten Tomatoes
4. John McCarten, "A Slight Sinking Sensation," The New Yorker, March 12, 1955
5. Hit the Deck (1955), JustWatch
6. Musical Theatre: A History (Kenrick), chapter on Vincent Youmans
7. Hit the Deck, BFI Player
8. Hit the Deck (1955), Classic Golden Age Films
9. Hit the Deck (1955), The Blonde at the Film
10. [Hit the Deck [1955 Original Soundtrack], AllMusic](https://www.allmusic.com/album/hit-the-deck-1955-original-soundtrack--mw0000105513)
11. Frank Miller, "Hit the Deck (1955)," Turner Classic Movies
12. Hit the Deck (1955), The Vintage Cameo

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Musical and music films (individual works) › Musical films of the 1930s to 1960s

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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