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A follow-up to the enormously successful Behind the Front, We're in the Navy Now reteams the stars of the earlier film, Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton. Beery plays dimwitted boxer Knockout Hannigan, while Hatton is his larcenous manager Stinkey Smith. KO'ed during a preliminary bout, Hannigan awakens to discover that Stinkey has skipped with their savings. The boxer chases the manager into a Navy recruiting office, where to no one's surprise both men accidentally sign up for a lengthy hitch. The rest of the picture finds our heroes screwing up at every possible opportunity, only to be continually promoted and decorated by the Navy for their inadvertent heroism. Tom Kennedy, who played Beery and Hatton's flustered sergeant in Behind the Front, shows up in We're in the Navy Now as Hanngan's ring opponent, the aptly named Homicide Harrigan. According to director Eddie Sutherland's then-wife Louise Brooks, screenwriter Ralph Spence had an awful time matching his dialogue subtitles with Beery and Hatton's obscene lip movements.