Maverick Navy Lieutenant Commander Tom Dodge will never be a textbook officer, but he's a brilliant seaman who's always wanted to command a nuclear submarine — he's been given one last chance to clean up his record. Unfortunately, Admiral Graham, his nemesis, would rather sink the fleet than give Dodge his own boat. So, Graham stacks the deck against him and assigns Dodge to the Stingray, a diesel-powered WW2 submarine that can barely keep afloat. To make matters worse, Dodge's crew is a collection of maladjusted, mistake-prone misfits. Then, he's tagged the "enemy" in a crucial war game, and ordered to take on the U.S. Navy's best.
Rivals Bill Arden and Paul Herbert enter the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in order to impress a girl.
Two Navy men are ordered to bring a young offender to prison, but decide to show him one last good time along the way.
Retired Lieutenant Commander Quinton McHale spends his days puttering around the Caribbean in the old PT-73 selling homebrew, ice cream, and swimsuit calendars. He's brought out of retirement when his old nemesis turned the second best terrorist in the world, Major Vladikov, takes over the island of San Moreno and starts building a nuclear launch silo on it. With help from his old crew and hindrances from Captain Wallace B. Binghampton, who sank a cruise liner a while back, McHale tries to put Vladikov out of business.
On a layover in Hawaii two conniving Navy seamen borrow money to lay down bets that their ship will win the upcoming gunnery practice trophy, having found out that the current gunnery champ has just transferred aboard their ship. What they haven't learned, however, is that the marksman's enlistment is up before the contest is supposed to take place.
Three sailors wreak havoc as they search for love during a whirlwind 24-hour leave in New York City.
When the US Navy fleet docks at San Francisco, sailor Bake Baker tries to rekindle the flame with his old dancing partner, Sherry Martin, while Bake's buddy Bilge Smith romances Sherry's sister, Connie. But it's not all smooth sailing—Bake has a habit of losing Sherry's jobs for her and, despite Connie's dreams, Bilge is not ready to settle down.
Popular crooner Russ Raymond abandons his career at its peak and joins the Navy using an alias, Tommy Halstead. However, Dorothy Roberts, a reporter, discovers his identity and follows him in the hopes of photographing him and revealing his identity to the world. Aboard the Alabama, Tommy meets up with Smoky and Pomeroy, who help hide him from Dorothy, who hatches numerous schemes in an attempt to photograph Tommy/Russ being a sailor.
Show business twin sisters Rosemary and Susie, one serious and the other a scatterbrain, join the WAVES and both fall in love with crooner Johnny Cabot.
American sailor Charlie Madison falls for a pretty Englishwoman while trying to avoid a senseless and dangerous D-Day mission concocted by a deranged admiral.
Meet Duewand Collier Jr.-Male, 68 years old, American Citizen, a child conceived in the backdrop of the Philippines-American Mutual Defense Treaty, born and raised with Catholic guilt. He has made peace with his past and now tells his story-a story of love.
The crew of PT-73 get into trouble when they back the wrong horse in a race. Now they have to come up with a way to raise the money to pay off the winners.
The crew of PT-73 are in trouble again when Ensign Parker is mistaken for a pilot and gets shanghied into the Air Force.
Carl is a US Navy Shore patrol officer who is based at the Holy Loch naval base in Scotland. Armed only with a nightstick, his primary function is to ensure that sailors on shore leave do not become too rowdy, and to provide help to sailors in need of assistance. Carl is married to a local girl and their relationship is at breaking point - she wants to leave Scotland and settle in America while he wants to remain in Scotland. With his brother-in-law Willie, who is already estranged from his wife and under threat of redundancy from his shipyard job, the two men forge a friendship to help each other through.
Four Navy recruits fresh from boot camp graduation in San Diego spend a weekend pass together out on the town in Los Angeles before shipping out for further training.
Previously filmed in 1930 as True to the Navy, Kenyon Nicholson's old stage farce Sailor Beware returned to the screen in 1936 as Lady Be Careful. The plot remains substantially the same, as an amorous sailor named Dynamite (Lew Ayres) bets his pals that he can "thaw" icy beauty-contest winner Billie (Mary Carlisle). What follows is a series of misunderstandings, arguments and reconciliations, all wrapped up in a happy-ever-after conclusion.
When Lt. John Harkness is assigned as the new skipper of a submarine chaser equipped with an experimental steam engine, he hopes that the U.S.S. Teakettle's veterans will afford him enough help to accomplish the ship's goals. Unfortunately, he finds the crew and its officers share his novice status or only have experience in diesel engines.
"Stinky" Smith makes off with the prize money when his buddy, "Knockout" Hansen loses a fight with Percival "Sailor" Scruggs. Hansen pursues him him a U.S. Navt recruiting office, and, the next thing they know, both are in the Navy and aboard an overseas transport ship. Madelyn Phillips is on board and Scruggs is the the ship's Master-of-Arms. They overhear a mysterious conversation between Madelyn and the ship's radio officer. Later, Madelun induces the pair to take her off the ship and into a row boat. She disappears and they are picked up by a French ship, which sinks a German U-Boat. When the war ends they learn that Madelyn was an operative of the U.S. Secret Service.
U. S. Navy Lieutenant Gregg Masterman, of The Harvard and Boston Back Bay Mastermans, learned about the sea while winning silver cups sailing his yacht. He climbs swiftly in rank, and is now Junior Aide to Rear Admiral Stephen Thomas.
A lonely Navy sailor falls in love with a Seattle hooker and becomes a surrogate father figure for her son during an extended liberty due to his service records being lost.