Suddenly at the 9 o'clock hour, a variety of cuckoo clocks begin sounding off the number of hours in a marvelously-detailed sequence.DeVriess: You, uh, saw yourself on a carrier, or a battleship, no doubt.Keith: Yes sir, I had hoped that ---DeVriess: Well, I onlyhopethat you're good enough for theCaine.Keith: I shall try to be worthy of this assignment, sir.DeVriess: She's not a battleship or a carrier; theCaineis a beaten-up tub.After 18 months of combat, it takes 24 hours a day just to keep her in one piece.Keith was assigned to follow the smooth-talking, sarcastic Lt.Keefer for a tour of the obsolete and "beaten-up" tub.Although heCainehad been designed to be a minesweeper, it hadn't been used to sweep mines in a year and a half:The first thing you've got to learn about this ship is that she was designed by geniuses to be run by idiots.Everybody drives me crazy.Marty is frustrated by his Italian Catholic mother, Mrs.Theresa Piletti (Esther Minciotti).She drives him crazy over his date-lessness and lack of prospects for marriage: "My mother, boy, she drives me crazy.So now it was to be Georgie the General, saying what we should do, and what not to do, and Dim as his mindless, grinning bulldog.