Like everything else in the Department of Defense, getting the Navy to help with any kind of entertainment production can be an arduous process. You fill out a questionnaire, a project officer is assigned to review the production, and if it meets the Navy’s criteria, your project can get support.
This is probably the same process director Marty Callner went through so beloved singer Cher could film a music video for her 1989 hit “If I Could Turn Back Time” aboard a battleship. Since the Navy just had a recruiting windfall with the release of “Top Gun” and the song was about a sailor getting a “Dear John” letter while underway, the Navy saw no problem with helping out.
A video featuring Cher singing to a rowdy group of American sailors would have been no trouble for anyone involved — if it weren’t for a last-minute costume change that would leave the Navy brass clutching …