In association with Amazon.com
FICTION
NON-FICTION
OTHER FEATURES
Tora! Tora! Tora! (DVD)Also in VHS
Starring Martin Balsam, So Yamamura, Jason Robards, Jr. (who was actually there in 1941), and an international cast. This is probably the best movie account of the Pearl Harbor attack. There is almost a documentary feel to the film, and a greater sense of immediacy than in the most recent filming of the story.
Pearl Harbor (DVD)Also in VHS
Stars Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale, Josh Hartnett, Cuba Gooding, Jr.. In all honesty, this is really a chick flick with some action scenes thrown in. The special effects are good, though there are the usual howlers, such a a ship capsizing with the centre of rotation obviously well above the waterline.
Midway (DVD)Also in VHS
Stars Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, Glenn Ford, Toshiro Mifune. Another good example of the sort of semi-documentary drama that Hollywood used to turn out. Midway was the pivotal battle of World War II in the Pacific.
Das Boot (DVD)Also in VHS
Stars Jürgen Prochnow, directed by Wolfgang Petersen. This is generally acknowledged as the best u-boat movie ever made.
U-571 (DVD)Also in VHS
Stars Matthew McConaughey, Bill Paxton, David Keith, and Harvey Keitel. Essentially a wartime propaganda film made long after the war, this film includes every cliché you can think of. Director Jonathan Mostow evidently decided to confine his efforts at authenticity to the u-boat itself. The rest is pure "rah, rah, our side is great and the other guys are all war criminals." Enjoyable if you're completely ignorant of the actual u-boat arm.
Run Silent, Run Deep (DVD)Also in VHS
Stars Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster. Based, rather loosely, on Edward L. Beach's best-selling novel, this film should be a part of every submarine enthusiast's video library.
Up Periscope (VHS)Stars Edmund O'Brien and James Garner.
Torpedo Run (VHS)Stars Glenn Ford and Ernest Borgnine. This is one of the few submarine movies that puts most of the combat action in the conning tower, where it actually happened, instead of in the much roomier control room. It's also a pretty good movie. Watching Glenn Ford set up a shot, you get the impression that he might have actually taken the trouble to find out what the controls on a periscope do, which is a unique quality in film.
The Enemy Below (VHS)Stars Robert Mitchum and Curt Jürgens. The American side of the story used an actual destroyer escort. The scenes aboard the u-boat weren't quite as authentic—it was astonishingly roomy, for one thing. But the story is the main thing, and it's a good one.
The Hunt for Red October (DVD)Also in VHS
Stars Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, James Earl Jones, and Scott Glenn. The first of the Jack Ryan films, and also the one that deviates the least from the book. The cast includes former Watergate attorney, and later Tennessee Senator Tennessee Fred Thompson (most recently playing the district attorney on "Law and Order"), and "The Nanny's" butler, Daniel Davis, as an aircraft carrier captain. (It's the British accent on TV that's fake, he's actually from Arkansas.)
Crimson Tide (DVD)Also in VHS
Stars Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman. Starring two of the best actors working today, this film is set aboard the nuclear missile submarine U.S.S. Alabama, giving a double meaning to the title. One warning, though. Most real boomer sailors tend to find this film very annoying.
The Hunley (VHS)Stars Armand Assante, Donald Sutherland. This film does a pretty good job of telling the (partly fictionalised) story of the first submarine to sink an enemy ship in wartime.
Down Periscope (VHS)Stars Kelsey Grammer, Rob Schneider, Lauren Holley, Harry Dean Stanton, Bruce Dern, and Rip Torn. It's a thoroughly silly movie, but lots of fun if you don't insist on taking anything too seriously. Dern and Torn both do their share of scenery chewing, and Harland Williams does a nice job as a sonar operator with hearing so acute his previous CO considered him a security risk. Holley is an "experiment," supposedly testing whether women should be able to serve aboard submarines.
McHale's Navy (VHS)Stars Tom Arnold and Tim Curry, with Dean Stockwell (Quantum Leap) as Binghamton, and Will & Grace's Debra Messing as Lieutenant Carpenter. Brought to contemporary times, this comedy pits McHale (Arnold) and his gang against "the world's second best terrorist (Curry). Utterly inane, which is a good part of the charm. This is your basic mindless comedy and, really, there's nothing wrong with liking that sort of thing. Ernest Borgnine also puts in a brief appearance.
The Atomic Submarine (DVD)Stars Arthur Franz and Dick Foran. This science fiction classic is actually a lot of fun. The villain is one of the quintessential BEMs (Bug Eyed Monsters), who, of course, finds humans horribly repulsive. (The humans don't find him very attractive, either.) This is the sort of movie much beloved of late-night horror TV hosts.
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea / Fantastic Voyage (DVD)Also in VHS (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea only)
Stars Walter Pidgeon, Michael Ansara, Peter Lorre. This Irwin Allen film was the basis for the long-running TV show. In the original, Admiral Nelson (Pidgeon) is off on an unauthorised mission in the U.S.S. Seaview to save the world after the Van Allen Radiation Belt catches fire. Ansara is a religious fanatic out to stop him, and Lorre is a scientist. The DVD also includes Allen's "Fantastic Voyage," in which a miniaturized submarine is injected into a comatose patient to destroy a blod clot. Stars Stephen Boyd and Raquel Welch.
Destination Tokyo (VHS)Stars Cary Grant, Dane Clark, John Garfield. A wartime film, a fair amount of effort was probably expended on making sure that the interiors of the submarine were not authentic. It's a rousing action tale, and includes the now cliché appendicitis operation. (Which actually happened a couple of times during the war.) Minor bit of trivia: LCDR Dudley "Mush" Morton of Wahoo fame was a visitor on the set during filming..
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (DVD)Also in VHS
Stars Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Paul Lukas, Peter Lorre, and a seal. Disney's version of the Jules Verne story is still the best, even if the studio's concern for younger viewers may have taken a bit of the edge off the story. The battle with the giant squid stands up well even 48 years later. Mason gives a fine performance as the tortured Captain Nemo.
Yellow Submarine (DVD)Also in VHS
Stars the Beatles' music (their speaking voices were provided by mimics). This Peter Max styled animated cartoon is filled with great music, and has an enjoyable—if silly—plot about Pepperland being taken over by the evil Blue Meanies. Transported to Pepperland in a yellow submarine by Young Fred, the Beatles save the day with their music, revive the Pepperland citizenry, and free Dr. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band from stasis. Lots of fun.
Operation Pacific (VHS)Stars John Wayne and Patricia Neal. Good John Wayne action movie, set aboard a submarine during World War II.
They Were Expendable (VHS)Stars John Wayne, Robert Montgomery, Donna Reed. Directed by John Ford. The story of PT boats during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. Montgomery actually served in PTs during the war, and also directed some of the second unit action.
In Harm's Way (VHS)Stars John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal, Brandon De Wilde. This Otto Preminger film contains as much character development as action, and is the better for it. John Wayne could act, though he was rarely given material that required it. This was one of those where he did. The model work was state of the art for the period, though it looks a little obvious today. Highly recommended.
U-Boat War (DVD)This three-part documentary gives a good overview of the war at sea for the u-boat arm of the World War II German Navy. This is the same documentary that's been shown on The History Channel recently, and well worth watching.
Nova: Hitler's Lost SubOriginally broadcast on PBS as part of the Nova series, this documentary includes quite a lot of information on World War II German submarine operations. Includes interviews with survivors. But the core of the program is the effort to identify a sunken U-boat discovered off New Jersey.