Up the Creek (1958)

I Wish Today's Comedies could be so Funny.

Up The Creek shows why imported British comedies often packed American movie theaters back in the 1950s and 1960s. It's non-stop laughs from the time the movie starts. Take one incompetent young officer is put in charge of a mothballed ship awaiting destruction. Add a skeleton crew led by Peter Sellers who've been allowed to go unsupervised far too long, and have gotten up to all sorts of illegal activities: from bootlegging and cigarette smuggling to doing laundry in the ship's washing machines for pay, to raising pigs and chickens aboard the ship.
Add the young officer is a fanatic with rockets and give him a chance to work on one unwatched aboard the ship, unmindful to the fact his first three caused much damage to property and in one case just missed killing a man. Throw in some senior officers who are as foolish as everybody else, and so stuffy and unsympathetic that you end up rooting for the nutty young man and the crooked sailors. Top with a nice romantic intersest, and serve to an appreciative theater audience. In short, if you don't mind black and white films, and like British films, or for that matter like Peter Sellers, this film is for you.