A Girl in Every Port

'That big ox means more to me than any woman!' says Armstrong's sailor (via an intertitle) in Hawks' engagingly naive fourth film, thus paving the way for decades of buddy love. A strange choice, you might think, when the ox is McLaglen and the woman is the almost divine Louise Brooks, glowing with beauty in a cloche hat and beguiling fringe. But the film's allegiances remain so much with the triangle's male sides - two sailors who stumble over each other befriending the same girls in the same ports - that the result is dramatically lopsided. Technically, however, it's perfectly adroit, swiftly paced, clearly detailed, with only a modicum of overacting from the lads when they're tanked up and spoiling for trouble ('Let's pick another fight and go fifty-fifty on the fun'). No Hawksperson should miss it.