Mister Roberts is set on a WWII supply ship, headed by a brass Captain Morton (James Cagney) who hasn't let his crew off ship for nearly a year. His booming voice (though we don't yet know it is his) thunders above the ship deck instructing the crew; it's a eerie, monotonous sound that feels disconnected from the ship, God-like, as if it encompasses the sea and surrounding sky. It's a weird opening scene with the ship separated from anything else on the horizon. As far as we know from the first few minutes it very well could be abandoned; the voice an imagined sound from the grave. A glimps of the shore appears a few moments later and it's clear the ship is set just off the mainland, and from here the absurdity of the ship's positioning begins.
Naturally charming, and alternately quiet and witty, William Powell plays Lt. "Doc," who is Lt. Roberts' (Henry Fonda) confidant and friend on their lonely, droning time in the service. Most of the time there is literally nothing for the soldiers to do but wait until the warring soldiers at sea need supplies. They sit idle, desperate for a diversion, even a fight. Things are so laid back that Lt. Roberts is addressed as "Mister Roberts," the crew's father figure. He keeps them sane; they peep through their binoculars at the nurses' station on land, and he lets them to peel their shirts off in the hot sun--all against Navy protocol, and of course much to the dismay and anger of Captain Morton. Harry Carey, Jr. plays Stefanowski, one of the many seemingly pubescent soldiers on ship--you can't miss him with his glistening white waves of hair.
Ward Bond is "Chief Petty Officer Dowdy," as usual a gruff but tenderhearted authority figure who seems more dimensional against the foil of Cagney, Powell, and Fonda. Jack Lemmon plays funny-man and slacker Ensign Pulver, who talks a lot of smack but rarely has the gaul to live up to his words. Once Lemmon enters the mood naturally lightens—particularly in the scene where he, Doc, and Roberts concoct their own brand of whiskey, made of none other than water and a few liquids from the medicine cabinet.
John Wayne's second son Patrick also has a part as a soldier, though it is small so pay attention whenever the larger group of soldiers is on screen. Working with Ford really is like being a part of a family; he's screened generations of his best actors, Harry Carey and Harry Carey, Jr; the Duke and his son Patrick, not to mention his own brother Frank in earlier films (who also used John when he was a director himself in the silent days). Beside these players are his unofficial family, the recurring actors like Fonda, Cagney, and Ward Bond, all smack into the Closterphobic space of this ship stuck at sea. They even bicker like family.
Mister Roberts has the same apathetic and frustrated tone as some recent war movies, like Jarhead (2005), for example, where Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) is bored to numbness in Iraq. It's full of pent-up anxiety that longs to be unleashed against an enemy that for them doesn't exist.
Also, if you were an AMC junkie in the past, you might be familiar with the movie Ensign Pulver (1964)--they played this movie almost as regularly as Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid (1969). Ensign is a remake of Mister Roberts with Walter Matthau as "Doc," and a slender Jack Nicholson as a shipmate.
Mister Roberts was co-directed with Mervyn Leroy, and uncredited as director is Joshua Logan, the film's screenwriter and later director of its remake, Ensign Pulver.
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