U-Kreuzer Tigerhai

William Holden is Cmdr. White a quite mature man who suffers through the boredom of the post WW II Navy. He is chained to a desk on a base near his old submarine, which has been decommissioned and mothballed. He visits it periodically to experience his wartime ghosts. He is so bored that he seriously considers chucking the Navy and taking a more lucrative civilian job. Nancy Olson plays his understanding Navy wife. William Bendex is also on hand with old time Chief Petty Officer wisdom and to remind Holden of his ghosts.

Don Taylor portrays the fun and games Navy pilot who is anything but mature. He is teaching ROTC at a nearby college. They met at the end of the war when White's submarine rescued him. They maintain a friendship even though White is at times disturbed by his happy-go-lucky well adjustment.

When The Korean War starts White is rescued from his desk and placed in command of ----- (You guessed it!) his old submarine. Taylor and Holden are united again off the Korean Coast where boat and men undertake a movie ending dangerous mission.

This was a feel good war movie that wasn't loaded with dated propaganda. Holden narrates as he did in Sunset Blvd. where he first played opposite Olson.

If you like military movies, this is a good one.

Imagine THE CAINE MUTINY, without a mutiny, and you might have the William Holden vehicle SUBMARINE COMMAND (actually more like THE FROGMEN) co-starring SUNSET BOULEVARD girl-next-door Nancy Olson as the wife of Holden's Lt. Commander Ken White, who, initially second-in-charge within the titular vessel, makes a quick decision to submerge when the stalwart/popular captain's still outside...

The audience can see he's been hit by a Japanese zero but the drama relies on Holden's character not knowing if the death was by gunfire or drowning, the latter to save the crew... yet what really matters is stocky CPO Boyer's opinion, and, played by always reliable William Bendix, he doesn't like Holden's guilt-ridden second-guessing lieutenant one bit...

Unfortunately there's no real tension between both otherwise intense actors, and either way, most of the picture takes place post-war as Holden goes from grouchy to grouchier... especially towards wife Olson... until a second chance to make up for past deeds when Korea rears up...

But by this time we're almost through, which is both good and bad: the first since things don't drag too long as the initial 20-minutes held most of the semi-suspenseful, claustrophobic action... and bad since we never experience Holden, Bendix, Arthur Franz or happy-go-lucky scene-stealer Don Taylor in any real threat or danger throughout.

I couldn't disagree more with the reviewer who credits this as Mr. Bendix's best roll. He was good in most of the rolls he took on with the possible exception of The Babe Ruth story. I have three best William Bendix films: Life Boat, Wake Island, and Kill the Umpire. In this film he's play the chief torpedo-man on the Tiger Shark a boat and crew haunted by the loss of their captain on the last day of the war. Bendix's character blames the man who took command during the emergency that resulted in the loss of the captain. After the war William Holden's character has to come to grips with the memory of that day and the loss of his friend. The piece time navy and his conscience put to much pressure on his marriage and he finds himself redeployed aboard the Tiger Shark with many of the old crew for a new war in Korea. The sub is used to assist in the rescue of some commando's stranded ashore in Korea. During this mission the captain finds he has to use tactics he wouldn't have used before.

This movie has to be William Bendix's finest role. Noted for his portrayal of comic characters, such as Chester A. Riley in "The Life of Riley," in this movie Bendix is a moody, brooding sailor harboring a deep-seeded resentment toward the commander of a submarine, played by William Holden. The other characters in the movie are quite forgettable and the storyline itself, although interesting, is nothing particularly special and as a post-World War Two movie, it lacks the intensity of movies made during the war. But William Bendix's portrayal makes this movie worth watching and makes this movie, if not a classic, at least a work of art that merits consideration and an honorable mention.

William Holden stars in/narrates this rather humdrum submariner story from the end of WWII and the commencement of the Korean War that offers little by way of uniqueness or jeopardy. Holden, himself, is fine - but the tale of an executive officer making a tough, ultimately tragic, battle decision that causes him to become a pariah to many of his crew is just too old hat, as is the ending which offers a redemption that was never really in doubt. Technically, it conveys some of the claustrophobic aspects of living and working on a submarine well; and William Bendix as "CPO Boyer" demonstrates how effectively a man can hold a grudge, but (no pun intended) it's all just a bit too shallow and procedural. Worth a watch for the photography, but the story is neither here nor there...