Sailor’s Lady 1940

Sally Gilroy Nancy Kelly is one of the many hopeful beauties crowding the city’s parlors as a visiting Navy fleet nears. Her nerves tremble at the thought of marrying her fiancé, Danny Malone Jon Hall, who is among the sailors expected to disembark. Her close friends, Myrtle Joan Davis and Georgine Kay Aldridge, try to steady her with cheerful reassurances, insisting there’s nothing to fear about a celebration that promises to bring two lives together.

But underneath the surface, a darker plan begins to unfold. Scrappy Wilson Dana Andrews, Danny’s closest friend and fellow sailor, has grown weary of the idea of marriage. Just before the USS Dakota docks, a court order withholding his pay over alimony issues sparks a ruthless scheme. Scrappy recruits another sailor, Goofer Wally Vernon, and they plant a gun component in Danny’s duffel bag, setting the stage for a dramatic accusation of stealing Navy equipment by the ship’s chief, Chief Mulcahy. The trap is sprung, and Danny is quickly dragged into trouble.

Crushed by the prospect of losing Danny, Scrappy tells Sally that her fiancé will spend the entire visit behind bars. Meanwhile, a persistent suitor, Rodney Buster Crabbe, presses Sally to abandon Danny and marry him instead, arguing that a secure home would still be possible for their future child, whom Sally has already named. Yet Sally remains determined to bring Danny ashore at some point, fiercely clinging to the idea of their growing family.

Danny manages to escape from jail and slips ashore with Sally, taking him to their brand-new house. There, she drops a surprising revelation: she has adopted a baby girl, Margaret Lane, whom she affectionately calls “Skipper,” a decision that leaves Danny unsettled about his place in this budding family. The tension between their new life and their old loyalties intensifies when a shore patrol discovers Danny’s presence ashore, arresting him again for going AWOL under another man’s identity. Sally wastes no time appealing to the ship’s commander, Captain Roscoe Pierre Watkin, insisting that Danny and Sally are already husband and wife, and that Danny’s absence is simply a family matter. Roscoe accepts the explanation and not only drops the charges but also promotes Danny, hoping to help him support his new family.

Rodney, not willing to concede, continues to press Sally for a traditional home life, and a party is organized to win Miss Purvis Mary Nash over. But the gathering dissolves into chaos when Scrappy’s associate, Barnacle [Edmund MacDonald], arrives and provokes a confrontation with Danny. Miss Purvis, acting with the gravity of the juvenile court, sees the unruly behavior as a potential threat to the fragile arrangement. The party ends in a heated break, and Sally ends up ending her engagement with Rodney, choosing Danny once more.

When Danny learns of Sally’s feelings and the recent chaos, a fight erupts, leaving the interior of their home in ruins. Miss Purvis orders the situation be taken before the authorities, and Sally, desperate not to lose Skipper, makes a drastic move: she sneaks aboard the Dakota and places the baby in Captain Mulcahy’s cabin before returning ashore. The fleet sets sail to participate in naval war games, and Sally must contend with the looming juvenile court case if Skipper is found.

Skipper’s fate becomes entwined with Danny’s honesty. He decides to come clean to Captain Roscoe, hoping for mercy and a chance to stay with Sally. As the ship drills and fires its cannons, Skipper’s wail pierces the air, pushing the ship’s doctor to urge a cease-fire to avoid harming the infant. Roscoe faces a moral test: his career could suffer if he halts the fleet’s routine, yet the situation hinges on a simple mechanical fault—there is only a loose pin that has troubled the child’s comfort. The pause proves pivotal, and Roscoe’s leadership earns praise for averting disaster.

In the end, truth prevails and love endures. Danny returns to shore, and he and Sally are finally married in the Church of Good Shepherd, their lives forever shaped by a shipboard crisis that tested their resilience, trust, and willingness to put family first.