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If you've seen The Midshipman and would like to share your review, please e-mail me. Include a picture of yourself or avatar to accompany your review, as well as a star-rating (with 5 stars the best) and any of your favorite lines from the film.

Tom C. (October 2021)

Rating: -1/2 of 5

The Midshipman (1925) is a drama set at the US Naval Academy starring Ramon Novarro as Dick Randall. Randall is the son of a former Navy hero, so there's pressure to succeed at the USNA.

Novarro took over as Hollywood’s “King of the Latin Lovers” upon the death of Rudy Valentino, and in 1925, he's on the cusp of his greatest glory: starring with JC @ her loveliest in Across to Singapore! Kidding, this is the movie Novarro made right before he was the title character in a little epic called Ben-Hur. Presumably, MGM figured The Midshipman was a good vehicle to show off how dashing Novarro looked in a uniform. And in one scene that likely sent many a moviegoer's heart aflutter in 1925, Ramon even delivers a bare knuckle -- and bare chested! -- beat down of his nemesis, Tex, played by William Boyd, who went on to fame as Hopalong Cassidy in Westerns.

As an upperclassman, Dick befriends plebe Ted Lawrence. Ted's sister, Patricia, is the movie’s love interest. Patricia is played by former Sennett bathing beauty, Harriett Hammond, whose career fizzled in the talkies era. Basil Courtney, whose name already indicates a cad, also has designs in Patricia.

Eventually, Courtney tries to get rid of Randall by putting him in a compromising position with a woman while he's on duty. However, the vamp-for-hire picks the wrong cadet and puts her smooches on Ted. This offense carries with it dismissal from the Academy and the Navy. Dick walks in on Ted fending off rent-a-bimbo, and tells him that he will be reported to the Admiral. Oh dear, what to do?!?

Now, what of young miss LeSueur? Near as I can tell, she’s only in one scene in the copy of the movie floating around on YouTube. There’s a photo I’ve seen of JC as an extra in The Midshipman on BOE and other sites (see below); but that scene was not in the copy that I saw. Or, if it was, I totally missed it!

Joan appears in a little comedic relief scene about 46 minutes in. Novarro wants to pitch woo to Ms. Hammond, but his rowing teammates think Ramon would be better served by getting some shut-eye on the night before the match. Not to be put off of his amorous quest, Ramon fashions a rope out of bedsheets and sneaks out of the dorms in his PJs. Apparently, modesty prevented men from running wild in their jammies in the 1920s, so Novarro covers himself with a bedsheet.

As he runs around the campus, covered in a bedsheet, several people mistake him for a ghost, including lovely young Joanie, who is sitting on a park bench with a cadet much interested in playing patty fingers. JC ain’t having any of those shenanigans and puts the young buck in his place. Until she see the “ghost” at which time she throws herself into the arms of the young man. I don’t know who played the naval Casanova in this scene, but I can easily imagine him regaling his cronies many years later at the Actors Retirement Home about the time he got to cuddle with The Queen of Hollywood!

This is the last movie Joan made as Lucille LeSueur. After this, she had a more substantial role in Old Clothes, which was the first time she was billed as Joan Crawford. Overall, I give this 2.5 stars -- 1 for content, 1 for the fact that it is paced nicely at an 1 hour and 20 minutes, and a half star as it shows our beloved heroine on the cusp of Joanie-dom.