Ensign Pulver

Set in 1945 aboard an ageing cargo ship far out in the Pacific, Ensign Pulver centres on Captain Morton, a career officer determined to earn a promotion to commander. He drives the crew hard and grants them no freedoms, apparently indifferent to the fact that they are stationed thousands of miles from the fighting. The men grow resentful and edge towards mutiny, though none will take the first step, until a prank by the young Ensign Frank Pulver sets off consequences nobody intended.

Joshua Logan directed and produced the film and co-wrote the screenplay with Peter S. Feibleman. It arrived in 1964, the sixth of the eight features Logan directed, between Fanny and Camelot. Robert Walker Jr. plays Pulver, with Burl Ives as Morton, Walter Matthau as Doc, Tommy Sands, Millie Perkins and Kay Medford among a credited cast of twenty-nine. Warner Bros. Pictures released the 104-minute comedy, which follows the 1955 film Mister Roberts.

Audience response has been modest: on IMDb it holds 5.9 from around 1,900 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.5 from about 20 votes. The much larger IMDb sample suggests a mixed but not hostile reception, with viewers neither embracing nor rejecting it strongly.