Torpedo los!

The movie has a pretty interesting approach for '50's standards, by inserting lots of flashback sequences, with the home-front, that however also happen to be incredibly sappy. It does at parts make the movie a melodramatic one.

Submarine movies just never have been any of the best or most exciting, action packed movies because of their restraints, with a couple of well known exceptions of course. The movie has a good beginning but as it heads toward the ending the movie starts to drag and become less interesting, when the movie becomes more personal and gets filled with some more emotional aspects.

It even manages to put in a personal and family dramatic main plot-line in the movie. What an accomplishment for a submarine movie! Yes, it helps to make the movie more original and less formulaic but it also of course isn't the most interesting approach thinkable, especially not since it gets stretched out for the movie its entire duration.

The miniature effects were pretty good looking. I mean I have seen far worse, even from movies that were made much later. Although they are hard from convincing by todays standards of course.

Glenn Ford was a great choice for the main lead, as the tough looking but sensitive commander. Ernest Borgnine forms a good duo with him, as the submarine's lieutenant. The rest of the character remain mostly in the back.

A decent enough genre attempt.

7/10

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Glenn Ford is excellent as Barney Doyle, the war weary sub commander who has to make command decisions which will haunt him the rest of his life. The supporting cast is very good, especially Borgine as Arch, Doyle's second in command and best friend. The director, Joseph Pevney, does a good job of creating an atmosphere of tension as the Americans hunt down the prize of the Japanese fleet--the ship which ultimately costs Doyle his family. My favorite scene is when the American sub sneaks into Tokyo Bay in search of the Japanese carrier. Admittedly, Torpedo Run is not as gritty and intense as Das Boot, nor is it as action-packed as The Hunt For Red October, but in its own way it is on par with both of these fine films. If you like 1950s WWII movies or if you're a Glenn Ford fan, you can't miss with Torpedo Run. It's one of those movies I have to watch at least a couple of times each year.

In 1942, the commander of the submarine USS Grayfish, Barney Doyle (Glenn Ford) commands a motley crew such as : Lt. Jake 'Fuzz' Foley (Dean Jones) , 'Hash' Benson (L.Q. Jones) , Lt. Redley (Robert Hardy) , Lt. Burt Fisher (Paul Picerni) and especially the second-in command Lt. Archer 'Archie' Sloan (Ernest Borgnine) with whom Barney has a special relationship . Doyle is a stiff captain who plans to sink a Japanese carrier . As their main target is the Japanese aircraft Akagi, which led the attack on Pearl Harbor. But there is a freighter in the way , and on board are his wife and child . Doyle is tormented by the fact that his spouse and baby daughter were taken prisoner when the Japanese invaded the Philippines and he has no word from them for almost 10 months . They're really prisoners of the Japs and whom we have grown to love in flashbacks . Shortly after , Barney is overjoyed when reliable sources confirm that they are alive . There was good reason for the Japanese to let him know however : all of the civilians are being transported to Japan . At the end takes place the confrontation and square off in the Pacific Ocean and Tokyo bay .

Standards submarine melodramatics about an US submarine that must torpedo a Japanese carrier which holds some of the crews family members . Glenn Ford gives a good acting as an able ship's captain well respected by his men and effective at sea , who pursues the ship that led the attack on Pear Harbour back Tokyo . Although the film relies heavily on the deep relationship between Lt. Cmdr. Barney Doyle/Glenn Ford and Lt. Archer 'Archie' Sloan/Ernest Borgnine . This nail-biter is a tightly-knit drama centered on the relentless sea maneuvers of a sub going after a carrier and vice versa . Sometimes slow , generally worthwhile watching . As a main premise results to be an engaging issue : a ship transporting his family is acting as a shield for the Akagi carrier forcing Doyle to make a terrible decision, as his country comes first and he blows the freighter out of water . The film is known as one of the most famous WWII submarine movies, though some scenes at sea, however, suffer from the utilization of obvious models in a just as obvious studio tank . Secondary cast is frankly good such as : Diane Brewster, Dean Jones , L.Q. Jones , Philip Ober , Richard Carlyle and Robert Hardy . George J. Folsey's colorful and vivid cinematography , including spectacular maritime scenes , set in the Pacific Ocean of World War II ; in fact , this movie's ocean scenes were filmed in the Pacific Ocean. .¨Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1958) wishes to thank the Department of Defense and the United States Navy for their assistance in the production of this motion picture."

The motion picture was professionally directed by Joseph Pevney who also made other WWII films as ¨Away all boats¨. Pevney shot all kinds of genres as Comedy , Film Noir , Mystery , Drama , such as : ¨Who is the black Dahilia ?¨, ¨The strange door¨, ¨Man of a thousand faces¨, ¨Mysterious Island of beautiful women¨, ¨Cash McCall¨, ¨Tammy and the bachelor¨, ¨Istanbul¨, ¨Because of you¨ and Westerns as ¨Night of Grizzly¨ .



This ¨Torpedo run¨ represents one of a select group of a few World War II submarine movies which have won the one single Academy Award in a technical category, that's just only the one Oscar in either special effects or sound editing. These movies include ¨Crash Dive¨ ; ¨Enemy below ¨(57) by Dick Powell with Curt Jurgens, Robert Mitchum , and ¨U-571¨. The non-WW II sub-movie, ¨The Hunt for Red October¨ also won just the one Oscar as did the WW 2 part sub-movie 49th Parallel , but for Best Original Story . Furthermore , other important films about submarine are ¨Run Silent Run Deep¨, ¨Crimson tide¨ by Tony Scott with Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman; ¨K19¨ with Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson and the best ¨Das Boot¨ (1982) by Wolfgang Petersen with Jurgen Prochnow .

The Leonard Maltin movie guide describes this World War 2 movie as being "sluggish". To some degree I would have to agree. Despite the movie taking place on the ocean battlefield, there often seems to be some sort of spark missing, with an almost casual feeling taking place instead. While I'm not looking for Michael Bay speed and edits, more adrenaline should have been injected. The leisurely pace is not the only thing dated. While some of the Oscar-nominated special effects *are* good, there are a few special effects shots that may provoke giggles from modern day audiences. And the ending wraps things up a little suddenly, and may be unsatisfying to some viewers.

Fortunately, there is more good than negative stuff. Glenn Ford and Ernest Borgnine give solid and believable performances. (And there is fun seeing L.Q. Jones and Dean Jones among the supporting players.) And while the movie may be leisurely at times, it doesn't get to the point of being boring. If you are looking for a submarine warfare movie, you could do worse.

This is one of these films that we don't get nowadays and hasn't been produced for decades . Hardly surprising since 1945 only two submarines have killed ships in conflict . The first one being the Pakistani submarine PNS Hangor that sunk the Indian frigate INS Khukri in the 1971 India - Pakistan war and the last time was the Argentine Cruiser The General Belgrano being sunk by HMS Conqueror in the 1982 Falklands War . On top of the 1981 movie DAS BOOT has got to be the last word on this sub genre of war movie . It's very easy to express tension in these type of movies , of having silent routine as enemy ships patrol over head dropping depth charges and have close ups of submarine crewmen with beads of sweat slowly dripping down there foreheads but DAS BOOT did this type of drama so effectively and so vividly any successor would be a very pale imitation

TORPEDO RUN on its own merits isn't a bad film . It doesn't break any new ground but follows the formula rather well . Like so many other films especially American war films there's a fair bit of artistic licence used such as no American submarine actually penetrated the Tokyo harbour during the war and the mega massive Japanese aircraft carrier is an invention for the film . There is a slightly annoying aspect and that is many of the model shots look unconvincing but this is common problem seeing as scale involving fire and water are impossible to achieve on screen and even DAS BOOT suffered slightly from this

One thing the film does deserve great credit for is the British character Lt Redley played by Robert Hardy . All too often recent American productions such as SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and BAND OF BROTHERS portray the Brits as either amateurish buffoons needing rescuing by the tough , brave and resourceful Americans or make an already bad situation much worse leaving the hard pressed Americans to pick up the pieces while the British stop to drink some tea . Here we see Redley put forward a suggestion that gets the crew out of a very tight spot . Nice to see the war shown as a joint effort amongst allies who had a mutual respect for one another