SOUTH SEA WOMAN—might as well skip the p.c. as bare-knuckled Yankee studs take on the Japanese fleet, German agents, the dames, the MPs, and the cliches of a few decades of similar action comedies.

Umpteenth rehash of two-buddies-against-all theme finds jut-jawed Marines Burt Lancaster and Chuck Connors fighting over dance-hall toots Virginia Mayo and cracking wise all the way from Shanghai and Hong Kong back to San Diego.

It’s second rate 1953 What Price Glory (remade the previous year) and only mildly diverting, not one bit credible. Probably more fun after a half-dozen Singapore Slings with a few pals. Quick eyes will spot a 34-year-old Strother Martin parked next to Ms. Mayo during the opening scene. It was ex-baseballer Connors first substantial part, after toying with the acting business a half-dozen times since a bit in 1942s Wake Island.  After this, thanks to Lancaster’s coaching, Kevin Joseph Aloysius Connors put up the mitt and stuck to sound stages.

99 minutes, directed by Arthur Lubin, with Arthur Shields, Barry Kelley, Leon Askin, Paul Burke, Hayden Rorke. It brought in a slaphappy $4,400,000.