Minesweeper (1943)

Richard Arlen ("Houston/Jim") deserts from the US Navy only to re-enlist (under a pseudonym) after Pearl Harbor is attacked. He is assigned to a minesweeper where he must defuse these lethal obstacles to shipping in the Pacific Ocean. That's the exciting bit. The rest of it is a bog-standard melodrama with him falling for "Mary" (Jean Parker) and engaging is some rather dull sparring with fellow seaman "Nash" (Russell Hayden) for her affections. It's only when "Nash" saves the life of his competitor that "Lieut. Gilpin" (Frank Fenton) discovers some flaws with Arlen's backstory and our would-be hero, facing some precarious scenarios at home and at sea, considers doing yet another runner before he rallies to participate in a final deadly mission. The action bits at sea are quite interesting - it's not often we see anything from this wartime perspective; but the acting here is pretty ordinary and the melodramatic elements with the overly contrived plot make for a quite an unnecessarily convoluted story that I found quite boring after a while. As my year 7 school report card might have said -"Could do better"