An early directorial effort by Howard Hawks and one of the Hollywood pictures Louise Brooks starred in before becoming a movie legend by acting in two German, G. W. Pabst films, "A Girl in Every Port" also stars in the main roles a young Robert Armstrong (later a regular character actor, perhaps best known for playing the Jack Black role in the original "King Kong" (1933)) and a young Victor McLaglen, who somehow was the only one of the bunch to go onto to win a competitive Oscar ("The Informer" (1935)). Nuanced, McLaglen is not. Don't get me wrong, I love his later supporting roles in John Ford and John Wayne movies, especially "The Quiet Man" (1952), and, for the most part, "A Girl in Every Port" is just his kind of role. It's a "buddy" movie, or "bromance," with lots and lots of guys punching each other, and the way he approaches women like a Looney Tunes cartoon is kind of amusing in an eye-rolling sort of way. But, when the film's final act calls upon him for a couple scenes of dramatic acting, he tried, but it just wasn't in his repertoire.
Unfortunately, McLaglen's character is the protagonist, and much of the film follows him from port to port chasing women, only to discover that another sailor had already had them. Apparently, it's OK for women to share him, but not for other men to share the women he visits only whenever he's in town. Instead of sleeping with any of these women, he, instead, bumps into and gets into physical confrontations with other men. Eventually, McLaglen runs into this other sailor (Armstrong) and, of course, fists are thrown... and thrown some more. Through this male-bonding ritual, they become best pals. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this film is how homoerotic it is, while simultaneously being misogynistic, as well as jingoistic. In one scene, Armstrong's character repeatedly calls McLaglen away from a girl he's putting the moves on so that McLaglen will help him knock around other guys and to yank on Armstrong's fingers, which become disjoined, you know, from all the pounding. (Odd how Armstrong's character has supposedly had so many women, yet the film never shows him trying to seduce one.) The two also walk around on more than one occasion with their arms locked together.
After sailing together for some time, McLaglen decides he's made enough money to settle down. While his buddy is laid up with a toothache, McLaglen goes on land to discover Louise Brooks in a bathing suit. Naturally, he proposes on their first date that they settle down together. Little does he know, however-although we do from the moment Brooks' manager points the cash-heavy sap out to her-that she's a vamp. Brooks does well to steal a couple scenes, and, reportedly, she had enough presence here to gain the attention of filmmakers overseas. But, it's a rather cliched and thankless role, as she's eventually, literally tossed aside in favor of the film's central bromance.
