Don't Go Near the Water

Jaded Lt. Siegel (Glenn Ford) with swabbie yeoman Garrett (Earl Holliman) stuck with showing goofball congressmen (Jansen and Smithfield, Jack Albertson and Charles Watts) around their rear-sector Pacific island base, meets (23 year-old Sicilian-Irish) Gia Scala as native schoolteacher Melora (Alba), Chuck Walters directing for MGM, in Don’t Go Near The Water, 1957, from the novel by Life magazine editor William Brinkley.

Having contrived a fake air raid to separate her from a higher-ranking suitor, yeoman sailor Garrett (Earl Holliman) confesses his admiration for Lt. Tomlen (Anne Francis, in her last feature before her long run as an in-demand TV guest star), on an MGM WWII South Pacific island, in Don’t Go Near The Water,1957, starring Glenn Ford.

Opening the straightforward MGM/Glenn Ford service comedy (his first following the hit The Teahouse Of The August Moon, 1956), narration by Keenan Wynn (who appears later as a nutty newsman) introducing Fred Clark as the CO, with Ford, Russ Tamblyn and Ike Gibson as Pratt, in Don’t Go Near The Water,1957, featuring Gia Scala, Anne Francis and Eva Gabor.

Nearly 90 minutes in, P-R Lt. Siegel has drawn the short straw, required to escort a lady correspondent, presumed to be elderly or worse, when Eva Gabor appears as Miss Aldridge, disorienting all including Russ Tamblyn as Tyson, Jeff Richards as Lt. Pendleton, and Howard Smith as the admiral, in MGM’s Don’t Go Near The Water,1957.

Navy office workers scheme to build a recreation hall on a remote Pacific island in the military comedy Don't Go Near The Water (1957) starring Glenn Ford.