User Reviews

NAVY LOG was a half hour anthology series that lasted three seasons on two different networks, dramatizing actual cases from files compiled during World War II, the creation of producer/screenwriter Samuel Gallu (later to direct a 1966 Christopher Lee vehicle, "Theatre of Death"). Who better to play an eminent Shakespearean performer than lifelong scholar of the Bard John Carradine, even name dropping John Barrymore and Orson Welles in the course of tonight's episode, "The Star." The attack on Pearl Harbor inspires Carradine as Francis Carpenter to forego the theater for a more permanent assignment with the US Navy, initially turned down by the attending physician until his 40 year old body gets into proper shape. The loss of his only son years before spurs him on to succeed among the much younger cadets, eager to safeguard him from harm during the Mediterranean voyage, bound for the southern shores of Sicily. As the only man on board who has actually visited the place some 8 years earlier, Carpenter is promoted by Col. Schaefer (Thomas Coley) as an unarmed special agent to scout ahead and confirm if trucks and tanks are allowed safe passage. The presence of buried mines would be problematic had not a helpful family and informed soldiers been able to help secure the proper route for a fully successful mission. Slight it may be, but a wonderful opportunity for John Carradine to indulge in 'The Divine Madness' in true theatrical style while being allowed to display a fuller range of emotion than his more typical villain roles. This part was also closer to home for the seafaring thespian, who had spent enough time working in tandem with the Coast Guard during the war that he earned a burial at sea upon his 1988 passing. The director was Poverty Row veteran Jean Yarbrough, whose final feature in 1967 would be a reunion with Carradine, "Hillbillys in a Haunted House."