La critique de Roger Ebert (suite)

 

The emphasis on one for all and all for one, coupled with the high value placed on discipline, adds up to a program designed to make good soldiers, and indeed the cruise seems at times a little like boot camp, with Bridges as drill instructor (a student with vertigo is forced to climb the rigging). Yet Bridges is a likable type who runs a fairly loose ship; he's the kind of skipper to whom a father might say, "I give you the boy. Give me back the man."

 

For Bridges, that includes turning a fairly blind eye to the boys' smoking (not all that common among 16-year-olds in 1960), drinking and whoring around in port (his wife matter-of-factly administers stabs of penicillin)