Ford's direction

As ddoherty pointed out, this film was something of a lark for Ford (and for George). They apparently shared a sleeper car to Maryland, and George and the girls (wistful Helen Chandler and southern belle Joyce Compton) went to dances held by the Navy at Annapolis. Everyone who made the film later remembered it as great fun.

I think what also must have been a holiday for Ford was that there was no "dialogue director" assigned by Fox to cover the dialogue scenes. These men, who came from the theater, were assigned on most of his early talkies.

Therefore it is striking how "non-stagy" a film this is. Part of it is the fact that it is obviously filmed on location - those scenes along the Severn in Maryland, with real breezes blowing - the scenes in the Naval Academy (think about it - those were the men who were to be the officers in WW2)- that nice scene where George is introduced to Helen at some sort of afternoon fete - that's real Maryland architecture. Nobody is just sitting still over the teacups on a soundstage.

And this is George's first full talkie. He had some dialog scenes in the part-talkie Noah's Ark, but this was important to show he could handle dialog at his home studio. Actually I think he does fine - better than the stage-trained (and rather whiny) Janney. As one of the newspapers from the time put it - he had a fine baritone voice!