But instead this role went to Robert Montgomery. In fact Montgomery had slowly been getting some of the Haines-like roles since he arrived at MGM in 1929.
Here Robert Montgomery plays swabbie John Paul Jones, Jonesy for short. He starts out the film insulting a chief petty officer on another ship, the aptly named Scotty (Ernst Torrence) because he figures the big galoot is on another boat, has no idea who he is, and thus can do nothing about it. When Jonesy gets shore leave he annoys Scotty more by showing up at his house with candy and flowers. Apparently Jonesy's "girl" is Scotty's wife, a fact the girl neglected to tell him. Leaving that house in a hurry, Jonesy runs into a young man who invites him back to his house - actually a mansion - for a swank party. There he meets an admiral's daughter, Kit (Dorothy Jordan) and they fall in love. Unfortunately, everybody at the party thinks Jonesy is a wealthy oil man from Brazil. Jonesy does not correct this false impression.
Also unfortunately, the next day Jonesy is tasked with helping Kit and her father the admiral aboard his vessel, so they all see he is really just a swabbie. Even more unfortunately, he is transferred to Scotty's vessel, where Scotty makes life miserable for Jonesy. Oh, and Kit's official beau is still angry about a joke Jonesy played on him at the party and he is an officer aboard his new vessel.
The plot is thin, but the production values are top notch, as in most MGM films even from the 1920s. This was shot partly aboard an actual navy vessel, so it has portions that are very interesting to a student of naval history. With Cliff Edwards as, Bilge, Jonesy's friend and the world's oldest living swabbie and Joan Marsh as a Jean Harlow-like platinum blonde siren right before the real Jean Harlow shows up at MGM. Also with Hobart Bosworth as the admiral, shortly before Bosworth put some dry ice directly into his mouth on the set of Dirigible, and lost his tongue and part of his jaw as a result. In the words of Robert Osborne - Yikes!
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