The 1955 film Mister Roberts was a highly successful comedy-drama produced within the Hollywood studio system. As such, it is an excellent example of narrative filmmaking within specific prescriptive guidelines. Set during the last days of World War II, the movie was based on the smash Broadway hit of the same name, with several of the prominent stage people involved in the film. A large part of the film's success was due to the outstanding performance of Henry Fonda in the title role, the role he created on Broadway. As this paper will discuss, in this type of conventional filmmaking, the characters and development of the lead character is of the utmost importance. Other elements of the film under consideration will be the historical viewpoint, what made the film a popular Hollywood classic, its genres, and the style of the film.
Warner Brothers, the studio that produced Mister Roberts, had a strict code of production efficiency on its directors, technicians, and stars alike (Cook 307). Economy was enforced which resulted in a style of flat, low-key lighting in order to obscure the spareness of the studios economical sets, but also to tight editing, and a fast-paced, disciplined narrative construction (Cook 307). At least three directors were involved in the film, mainly Warner Brothers top director John Ford, and then Mervyn LeRoy who replaced him as well as input from Joshua Logan who had directed the stage play. Because of the studio style, however, the direction comes across as seamless. The movie was shot in Warner color and Cinemascope and the widescreen format adds a colorful richness to the films narrow, confining, drab setting aboard a cargo ship. Cinematographer Winton Hoch was an expert in Technicolor cinematography which he called the color score of a film, emphasizing that the importance of proper color design and costume color selection can not be overemphasized (Hoch 96-108).
The lighting is conventiona...