About Frank Kollman

Mr. Roberts

My favorite "message" movie is Mr. Roberts, starring Henry Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and James Cagney. Cagney plays the captain of the supply ship "Reluctant", a vessel that sits in the South Pacific waiting for World War II to end. He is an insignificant man, whose only recognition has come in the form of a palm tree given to him by "the Admiral" for work done by Mr. Roberts, the supply officer, and his crew. He is evil in that he is self-centered, insensitive to the very real harm that he causes by his behavior.

Lemmon, who won an academy award, plays Ensign Pulver, a likeable, spineless junior officer who rooms with Mr. Roberts. He has been on the ship over a year, and the captain does not even know who he is. Pulver makes sure that he is not noticed by the captain, though he swears he shares Roberts's and the crew's disgust with the captain's ego mania and its manifestations. I have compared people I know (and in some cases like) with Ensign Pulver, never favorably.

Roberts is the senior officer after the captain, and he is well-liked by the crew. He is a decent fellow, but the crew likes him because he gives them hope in the fight against tyranny, namely the captain. He stands up to the captain, takes the crew's side when dealing with the captain, and most importantly, regularly requests a transfer to a battleship in letters that the captain must forward to headquarters. Because the captain forwards the transfer requests as denied, they are never granted, but the captain hates the letters because they make him look bad.

The crew lives for the letters, but the crew also desperately needs a liberty. Roberts, to get them a liberty, makes a deal with the captain to stop the letter writing and other behavior that the captain views as insubordinate. In an incredible show of character and selfless behavior, Mr. Roberts keeps his end of the bargain. As a result, the men start to hate him, too.

As this point in the movie, I begin to examine my own character in the context of Roberts's actions. Was he wrong to give into the evil captain to do what was right? Every day, I am confronted with choices, and I am never sure that giving into one wrong to have a positive effect is correct. Roberts, who realizes that he caused more harm than good by giving into the evil, takes the captain's prize palm tree and throws it overboard.

As a result, though not because Roberts tells them, the crew learns of his deal. They arrange to get him transferred by forging the captain's signature on one last transfer, this one marked approved. The crew gives him a medal in the shape of a palm tree. He leaves, and he tells Ensign Pulver that he must now take up the mantle against the captain's tyranny.

The final scene of the movie takes place on the deck of the ship. The crew is complaining to Pulver about the captain's latest order that there will be no movie that night. Mail call interrupts Pulver's attempts to duck the complaints. There is a letter from Mr. Roberts, who is now on a battleship near Okinawa, and one from Pulver's buddy aboard the same battleship. Roberts's letter makes Pulver squirm when it refers to a prank Pulver said he was planning to pull against the captain, but of course never materialized.

The letter from Pulver's buddy reports that Mr. Roberts is dead, the victim of a kamikaze attack while he was having a cup of coffee. No hero's death, no act of valor, no great noble end. Pulver reacts, leading to the final lines of the movie, delivered to the captain by a new Ensign Pulver: "I just threw your palm tree overboard. And what's this crud about no movie tonight?"

It takes the death of a man with true character to give character to another. What makes Mr. Roberts so good is that, like life, the bad guys still survive in what seems like a never-ending supply of opportunity for good guys to show character. We may never eradicate evil, but we can fight it, in whatever way we can. Mr. Roberts had character, the kind we should all aspire to have.

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