It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Between "Golden Boy" and "Sunset Boulevard," William Holden was stuck at Paramount playing light leading man parts. Here he's teamed with exotic Dorothy Lamour in a WW II musical, "The Fleet's In." Holden plays a sailor who is mistakenly believed to be a real Lothario - in fact, he's anything but. The rest of the sailors bet that he can't score with "The Countess," a club singer (Dorothy Lamour). If the plot sounds familiar, it was recycled for Elvis in "G.I. Blues." This plot is merely an excuse for some great music and performances. It's the film debut of vivacious Betty Hutton, who plays Bessie, the Countess' roommate.Pretty Helen O'Connell, whom I remember from an early interview show in the '50s, "Here's Hollywood," was a marvelous singer who worked with Jimmy Dorsey. Dorsey's band performs here, as does his other singer, Bob Eberly. O'Connell introduces the song "Tangerine" to audiences. Lamour sings the lovely "I Remember You." Hutton has the comic "Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing in a Hurry." All three songs have Johnny Mercer lyrics, as do the numbers "Not Mine" and "If You Build a Better Housetrap" performed by several of the singers.Wonderfully entertaining, though not as well remembered as many other musicals.

This is an awful film. Usually, the thin thread of a musical comedy plot links up with an Astaire, a Ginger, an Eleanor Powell, an Alice Faye. This one, with a plot even more gossamer than most, leads to some excruciating exhibitions of non-talent. The harmonica sequence and the parody ballroom dance performance are radically unfunny. Holden has nothing to do but be yanked like a puppet on the strings of Dorothy's sudden changes of mind. She plays a profoundly self-interested performer who, of course, falls in love with the puppet. The other women -- the raucous Hutton and the over the top Dailey play insulting stereotypes. As, of course, the rest of the sailors are. But some good sailor flicks do exist -- 'Follow the Fleet' and 'On the Town' for example. We do get to see Helen O'Connell, who towers over Dorsey and Eberly, and do, too briefly, hear Jimmy on the clarinet. He was one of the best clarinet players in an era that featured Goodman, Shaw, and Barney Bigard. At one point, Jimmy's band appears in a sudden pavilion on the street below Dorothy's aerie. How'd they get there? At the end, the four couples are all in a taxi getting married. How'd they get there? The film, made before Pearl Harbor, was already an anachronism when it was released (with Holden believing that his enlistment was just about up just as his battle wagon heads for Pearl). Robert Osborne on TCM said that he'd been trying for years to get the film on TCM. Never would have been too soon.

DOROTHY LAMOUR never looked more alluring and WILLIAM HOLDEN never looked as impossibly youthful as he does in THE FLEET'S IN. His acting as a shy sailor shows a natural talent right from the start.It's a "cute" minor musical from the studio that nurtured the talent of BETTY HUTTON, who plays Lamour's roommate. Lamour is a frozen ice queen called "The Countess," known for being "hard to get." When Holden plants a kiss on a pretty society gal that's seen by his Navy buddies and another on a movie star for publicity purposes, his team decides he's a regular sea wolf and place bets on how soon he gets to kiss "The Countess." The slim plot gets interrupted--sometimes for too lengthy a time, by musical comedy acts. GIL LAMB and CASS DALEY are a bit too strident for my taste but BOB EBERLEY and HELEN O'CONNELL can do no wrong when they sing some catchy songs with Jimmy Dorsey's orchestra. EDDIE BRACKEN provides the chief comic relief and does it well.A dancing duo by the name of LORRAINE and ROGNAN do a wildly funny dance act in a nightclub scene. The Johnny Mercer songs include "I Remember You," "Tangerine" and "The Fleet's In." Good escapist fun that lifted the morale of the service men during WWII.

This is a rather typical romantic, musical comedy with a good number of Paramount's stars, established or on the ascend -- Dorothy Lamour, Betty Hutton, Eddie Bracken, William Holden. The plot barely merits description, a bit of froth like those of the Astaire-Rogers musicals.Okay. The fleet arrives in San Francisco. Bets are made on whether a shy Quartermaster, Holden, can get the notorious Ice Princess who sings at Swingland, Lamour, to kiss him. Arrangements are made for them to meet and they fall in love, but every time Holden tries to take the relationship a step farther, somebody tells her more about the details of the bet and she misunderstands Holden's intentions.Holden is boyishly handsome. Lamour is a glamorous and sexy mezzo-soprano. Betty Hutton is on afterburners throughout and provides much in the way of barbaric humor, but not nearly as silly as some of the vaudeville numbers we witness. Maybe the most amusing performance comes from the ordinarily irritable and fustian Leif Erickson trying to be happy-go-lucky. Every time he laughs and make a wisecrack I expect him to shatter and fall to the floor like a broken ice sculpture.What raises this musical effort above the average is the introduction of two tunes that were to enter the Great American Songbook, both with tunes written by the director and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. "Tangerine" is memorable as a puncturing of female vanity. "I Remember You" is a wistful love song that reappears from time to time. Mercer was a talented guy with a face that, with only a few daubs of make up, could easily have been turned into a clown's. Memorable tunes seem to turn up in unlikely venues. "I'll Remember April" is from an Abbott and Costello movie, "Star Eyes" from a Red Skelton comedy.I didn't find the plot so enthralling but, as with Astaire and Rogers, it must be taken lightly, I guess. Just let your mind drift. It's only a movie.