When Bud Abbott and Lou Costello became big box office for Universal in Buck Privates (1941), RKO decided that they needed their own "Abbott and Costello" team of former vaudevillians. The studio picked thirty-eight-year-old Wally Brown and thirty-three-year-old Alan Carney, who bore enough of a physical resemblance to Bud and Lou and had the added bonus of already being under contract. The original idea was to star Brown and Carney in a series of low-budget military comedy films, built around two characters: "Jerry Miles" for Brown and "Mike Strager" for Carney, a couple of dim-witted soldiers whose films would be set wherever the American military was staging a high-profile fight. The Adventures of a Rookie (1943) and Rookies in Burma (1943) had performed adequately, but the Office of War Information was not happy with their portrayals; declaring the Rookies in Burma a "new low" and asking RKO to cancel the series. The studio still had what it considered a successful comedy team on their hands, and so they changed the characters' names to Monty Stephens and Orval 'Handsome' Martin, and put them into supporting roles in the musical Seven Days Ashore (1944), with co-stars Gordon Oliver, the up-and-coming Virginia Mayo, Dooley Wilson, who had achieved film immortality as the piano player "Sam" in Casablanca (1942), (singing "Apple Blossoms in the Rain" - a title reminiscent of Buck Privates' "I'll Be With You in Apple Blossom Time"), and that old reliable of the Marx Bros. films, the great Margaret Dumont.

Produced and directed by John Auer, with famed cinematographer Russell Metty behind the lens, Seven Days Ashore had more than a passing resemblance to Buck Privates with a playboy millionaire Dan Arland, Jr., (played by Gordon Oliver), two bumbling sidekicks (Brown and Carney) and a famous musician (Freddie Slack, with his orchestra). Instead of being set at training camp, as in Buck Privates, Seven Days Ashore has Merchant Marine rich boy Dan Arland coming into San Francisco for a week's shore leave, where he is met at the dock by both the women he's engaged to; Carol Dean (Virginia Mayo) and Lucy Banning (Amelita Ward), who just happen to be violinists in the same band. Also on the dock are his parents (Marjorie Gateson and Alan Dinehart, in one of his last roles) and his old girlfriend, Annabelle Rogers (Elaine Shepard), with whom his parents want him to reconcile. A comedy-of-errors ensues with the girls discovering that Arland is two-timing them and his subsequent attempts to get Carol and Lucy off his hands and into the arms of his buddies, Stephens and Martin.

While a harmless diversion, Seven Days Ashore was clearly a "B" picture and not a career-changer for anyone involved. Brown and Carney continued to make films together until 1946, when the team was broken up for good, and Virginia Mayo went on to stardom in her films with Danny Kaye.

By Lorraine LoBianco

Erickson, Hal. Military Comedy Films: A Critical Survey and Filmography of Hollywood Releases Since 1918

Fyne, Robert. The Hollywood Propaganda of World War II

The Internet Movie Database

"Seven Days Ashore", Montreal Gazette 5 Sept 44