Now Mr. Sawbridge was a good officer, one who had really worked his way up to the present rank, that is to say, that he had served seven-and-twenty years, and had nothing but his pay. He was a little soured in the service, and certainly had an aversion to the young men of family who were now fast crowding into it—and with some grounds, as he perceived his own chance of promotion decrease in the same ratio as the numbers increased. He considered that in proportion as midshipmen assumed a cleaner and more gentlemanly appearance, so did they become more useless, and it may therefore be easily imagined that his bile was raised by this parade and display in a lad, who was very shortly to be, and ought three weeks before to have been, shrinking from his frown.
As Mr. Sawbridge, the first-lieutenant, happened to be going on shore on the same evening for the last time previous to the ship's sailing, he looked into the Blue Posts, George, and Fountain Inns, to inquire if there was such a person arrived as Mr. Easy. "O yes," replied the waiter at the Fountain,— "Mr. Easy has been here these three weeks."
"The devil he has," roared Mr. Sawbridge, with all the indignation of a first-lieutenant defrauded three weeks of a midshipman; "where is he; in the coffee-room?"
"Oh dear no, sir," replied the waiter, "Mr. Easy has the front apartments on the first floor."
"Well, then, show me up to the first floor."
"May I request the pleasure of your name, sir?" said the waiter.
"First-lieutenants don't send up their names to midshipmen," replied Mr. Sawbridge; "he shall soon know who I am."
At this reply, the waiter walked up stairs, followed by Mr. Sawbridge, and threw open the door.
"A gentleman wishes to see you, sir," said the waiter.
— Frederick Marryat, Mr. Midshipman Easy. Illustration by Leonard Huskinson.
Screen shots from a DVD of Carol Reed's 1935 film adaptation of Mr. Midshipman Easy, starring then 15-year-old Hughie Green as the title character. It opens with a stirring rendition of “Haul Away Joe,” backed by a full orchestra, as a surprisingly impressive HMS Harpy sails into view. There’s not much else to recommend it.
My expectations for the special effects were low, and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality. The frigate looks good, the naval scenes are better than I expected, and while the costuming is flawed it's not too detracting. The movie doesn't look or feel low-budget for its time period.
On the down side, the casting of major characters was poor— they really look nothing like their descriptions in the book. Hughie Green is a little blond slip of a boy who looks nothing like the tall, heavyset character with curly black hair who is already an expert fighter from his schoolboy days. The actor playing rival midshipman Vigors looks more like Jack Easy than Jack Easy, shown here in a scene where they confront each other in the midshipmen’s berth.
I like the casting choice for Ned Gascoigne, at right, although I will never get over blond pipsqueak Jack Easy. The actors are age-appropriate for their characters although they look like children to me. It drives home how much warfare in this time period involved minors (who were very much considered to be minors, since a man did not legally reach adulthood until age 21). Many Marryat heroes, Jack Easy included, impatiently wait to reach the age of majority.
Here’s a very good First Lieutenant Sawbridge at left, and a handsome Captain Wilson at right. But what is that thing in the middle!? I’m so dismayed that that is supposed to be the boatswain Mr. Biggs. He’s a “slight, dapper man” in the book, who is inordinately proud of his fancy watch, but in this movie adaptation he’s a slovenly, obese character played for laughs (and the trousers-stealing scene doesn’t even make it into the movie.)
I’m equally annoyed with the Mr. Easthupp in this movie, at right next to Biggs. The book doesn’t talk about his age or physique (although he seems young-ish to me), but the purser’s steward is a “remarkably neat dresser” who is effeminate and very stylish. I’m really not getting that from this character actor, who is British but makes no attempt at Easthupp’s Cockney accent and buckish slang. The famous three-way duel with Easthupp, Biggs, and Jack Easy is in the movie, but in a mangled, truncated version that loses all the humor.
I understand that you have to cut out a lot of material from Mr. Midshipman Easy to condense it into a feature-length film; this is the case with all Marryat novels. In a perfect world they would all get television miniseries. But even allowing for the abridged version of the story, it's just too different in this adaptation. The characters in some cases have very little resemblance to their book versions, and others have been reduced to an insignificant role.
Margaret Lockwood plays Easy's love interest Donna Agnes. Although Lockwood was only 19 at the time, the heavy makeup and penciled eyebrows make her look much older; and with the 15-year-old Green looking like he's 12 they make for a creepy-looking couple. I’m glad that they parted as girlfriend and boyfriend in this version rather than getting married at the conclusion.
In the book their relationship is handled in a surprisingly respectful and deft way. Agnes is only 14 to Jack’s 16 or 17 when they meet, and they get to know each other better over the course of years. Jack even learns Spanish to write love letters to Agnes. (In the movie all the Spanish characters speak accented English, because of course they do.) The movie adaptation is very shallow in every way, compared to the book.
I’ve read praise for the British Guyanese actor Robert Adams, who plays Mesty in this film, but Mesty’s role wasn’t handled well either. Marryat doesn’t exactly write in a racially enlightened way, since he makes Mesty speak in a stereotypical dialect —including having Mesty learn English from Irish immigrants, so Marryat can mock Irish as well as black dialects— but the fact that Mesty has experienced unfair racial discrimination is taken pretty seriously in the book. In the movie he’s a bland supporter of Jack Easy with no pathos of his own.
