Present Arms (musical)
Present Arms is a Broadway musical comedy that opened April 26, 1928, with music by Richard Rodgers, and lyrics by Lorenz Hart. It is based on the book by Herbert Fields. It was produced by Lew Fields with musical numbers stage by Busby Berkeley. It ran for 155 performances at the Lew Fields' Mansfield Theatre, which today is known as the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Present Arms was filmed in 1930 with Irene Dunne, with its title changed to Leathernecking. The film is presumed lost.
Plot
The show starred Charles King, Flora Le Breton and Busby Berkeley. A man from Brooklyn is serving as a buck private in Pearl Harbor. He flirts with an English Peer’s daughter; however, she is being pursued by a German, who raises pineapples in Hawaii. The Brooklynite pretends to be a Captain in order to make an impression, but he is found out, booted out, and loses out on the girl, until he proves himself in a shipwreck.
Songs
Act One
Present arms (command)
Present arms is a two-part drill command used by many militaries in the world as a sign of respect. It comes from the old British command "Arms to the present!" This was used especially between 1700 to about the late nineteenth century in Great Britain and later the United Kingdom.
By country
Australia
Within the Australian Defence Force, the command "Present Arms" is executed using the following procedures.
- 'PRESENT ARMS BY NUMBERS - ONE'. Move the right forearm smartly upward, bringing the rifle to a vertical position, the front handgrip in line with the right shoulder.
- 'BY NUMBERS - TWO'. Raise the right foot through the position of mark time and place it on the ground with the instep against the left heel, the foot at the same angle as for the position of attention. At the same time bring the left arm smartly across the body, forearm parallel to the ground, elbow against the body, hand against the base of the pistol grip with the fingers extended and together, and the thumb on top of the forefinger.
Present Arms
Present Arms may refer to:
- Present Arms in Dub (1981 release), third UB40 album, a remix version of Present Arms
Present Arms (Dad's Army radio episode)
Present Arms is the first episode of the second BBC Radio 4 series of the British comedy series Dad's Army that was originally transmitted on Thursday 24 December 1974, as a Christmas Special. 'Present Arms' was compiled for radio from two television episodes, Battle of the Giants! and Shooting Pains and ran for an unusual 60 minutes, twice the length of a normal radio episode.
Synopsis
As the season of goodwill approaches, Captain Mainwaring and his men use their rifles and their wits in a no-holds-barred contest with Captain Square and the Eastgate Platoon. The prize is the honour of guarding a very important person. But in the end it is the ingenuity of Private Walker which saves the day.
Plot
It's December 1941 and while Corporal Jones and the rest of the platoon hold a very noisy bayonet practice, Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson are doing paperwork and are discussing the upcoming Ceremonial church parade of all the Home Guard platoons in the area. Mainwaring receives a new officer's cap in the post and hangs it on a nail on the door. Unfortunately, while charging at the bayonet dummy, Private Pike puts his bayonet through the door, and also Mainwaring's new hat. Mainwaring is incensed and shouts at Pike, calling him "a stupid boy" while Wilson receives a telephone call from Mrs Mainwaring. He hands the phone to Mainwaring, claiming she heard him shouting. Mainwaring is forced to leave in order to return his bedding to the air-raid shelter, leaving Wilson to dismiss the parade.
