Lieutenant Commander Robert Bollinger Badger, known everywhere in the Royal Navy as The Artful Bodger, is an excellent naval officer with one major problem: he speaks the truth at the most inopportune times. As a result, he is transferred to shore duty and then to instruct at the Royal Naval College. When his remarks are repeated by one of his students to the student's father, an anti-military member of Parliament, Badger has one last chance: he and three problem midshipmen are sent as exchange officers to the flagship of the United States Sixth Fleet. Their antics set back Anglo-American relations until they go ashore to a nation in the midst of a revolution.

The film was based on a 1959 novel by John Winton, a pseudonym for Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander John Pratt. The book was popular and led to a number of sequels including We Saw the Sea, Down the Hatch and Never go to Sea. In early 1959 producer Daniel Angel bought the film rights as a vehicle for Kenneth More.^[3]

Angel was blacklisted by cinema chains in England for two years for selling his films to television. We Joined the Navy was his comeback film. "They held out longer than I thought they would," said Angel. "The reasons for the unbanning are unspecified. I was just made to understand that if I produced films, the exhibitors would consider showing them."^[4]

In 1961 Daniel Angel signed a deal to produce a number of movies for Associated British of which this was to be the first (West 11 was the second).^[5]

More made it after his attempts to star in a film based on the book White Rabbit fell through. He called We Joined the Navy "the funniest script I've ever read" and said "it will be the I'm Alright Jack of the navy."^[6]

Filming started in Villefrance in the south of France on 1 May 1962 then continued at Elstree Studios. Toyes said Dirk Bogarde did a cameo as a favour to More and Danny Angel. "He was wonderful," said the director. "He came down, he only had had one very short scene to do, there were lots and lots of little cameo parts. And he never put a foot wrong, never had to have another tape, just came in and did it and had gone in about half an hour."^[2]

It was Mischa Auer's first English language film in a number of years.^[2]

The Guardian called it "a good romp".^[7] Filmink argued the film "was lopsided: the action should focus on the new recruits but they have to share time with Kenneth More, who plays their officer." ^[8]

Toye later said "the first half" of the film with "the boys being at Dartmouth and then being accepted for the navy and taking their various jobs and being, they became the three midshipmen... all that worked splendidly." However she said in the second half "it all took a funny turn and it became a bit political and by that time the mood of the film was comedy and it just, I don’t think it worked really. But it was the most fantastic cast."^[2]

A Region 2 DVD of We Joined the Navy was released by Network on 16 February 2015. The disc features a 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer.^{[citation needed]}

• We Joined the Navy at IMDb  
• We Joined the Navy at BFI
• We Joined the Navy at TCMDB