Le démon des eaux troubles

I thought the movie was good for it's era. Much better than some of the other fiction movies of it's time. The submarine scenes were very good. Especially the detail of water trickling down the periscope cylinder when they were submerged.

I too wondered where they were disposing of the buckets of water when they were supposed to be running silent. Again the scene was out of sequence.

Also the scene where Richard yells periscope up to look for the enemy sub, and they are surfacing. I thought it looked funny seeing the sub on top of the water and Richard is looking out the periscope.

Again good movie for it's time.

Although she didn't make but three major Hollywood motion pictures, Bella Darvi had magnificent screen magnetism that made a man's pulse beat red hot. In this campy picture (her first film), she does a fine job in her first effort as a film actress, displaying good technique cinematically. She was, as they say, a natural.

The French accent, the smooth skin, the sharp facial bone structure, those arched eyebrows, that smoldering stare, and that oh-so-sexy slightly cross-eyed look just made a guy want and wonder. Her voice was strong and yet soft at the right moments. There was something about her that made a man want scoop her up into his arms and say, "Hey, baby, it's gonna be okay!"

It's too bad that she was perhaps a victim of her own sexuality as it is rumored that Mrs. Darryl Zanuck discovered there might have been some hanky-panky with Mr. 20th Century Fox.

Richard Widmark is fittingly commanding and cantankerous as the sub skipper, and Cameron Mitchell does what he did so well in playing the comic relief sidekick sonar guy.

The script and it's dialog is something straight out of a comic book, but you've got to love it. It's got all of the marbles in one bag: submarines, underwater battles complete with ramming full speed ahead, a silent running sweatout, crash dives, commando shore raids, evil Commies, a spy guy named Chin Lee, a B-29 bomber, and just to put the cherry on the Boston cream pie, the obligatory nuclear explosion.

Check Bella Darvi out opposite Kirk Douglas in "The Racers". There again, the lady is smokin' hot!

So, if you want a good time, pop some corn, pull up a chair, and watch "Hell and High Water"!!!

Richard Widmark {Capt. Adam Jones} stars in this Cold War thriller as the leader of a submarine expedition to the frozen depths of Alaska. His mission is to thwart the communist Chinese who are intent on kick starting World War 3.

Hell and High Water is one of the multitude of pictures that serve only as studio efforts made for made's sake. Take your leading actor, surround them with jobbing actors, and mold a picture together as best as you can. Sometimes a film can break free of its B and C movie roots to truly surprise, but others flounder to only serve as time fillers on terrestrial television. This film falls some where in between the two, not particularly bad exactly, but outside of a couple of tight sequences, not necessarily good either.

It was actually in premise, building up to be a promising film. Then we see a shapely pair of legs coming down the submarine stairs and we just know that this film will lose its edge, and sadly, where it's all going to end up. The insistence of many writers and film makers to shoe horn in a love interest in the grittiest of places rarely works, and here it most assuredly doesn't either. Not that Bella Darvi {owner of those shapely legs} is poor or is at fault for the film being average, it just takes the film in a direction that it didn't need to go. Tension is built up, with one face off submarine sequence being particularly hold your breath inducing, but the preposterous romantic angle on a submarine death mission is badly misplaced.

Tidy but unmemorable, and cribbing from Crash Dive released eleven years earlier, it's probably one for Widmark purists only. 5/10

Yeah, it telegraphs all of the big "reveals", it has some overly dramatic acting, the major plot points are easy to see coming, the "red shirts" are obvious, the scenes are kinda cheesy, the characters are all one-dimensional, the plot motivators are simple ("he needs fresh air" or "we didn't have time to test the torpedo tubes") but dang I loved it! It was almost like a bond movie without the gadgets, the unbelievable stunts, or the bad double entendres. It is an instant classic in my book; it is just on the edge of something that you can take seriously. If you go in not expecting much and you realize that this was made many years ago before all of the methods used in it became trite due to overuse, then you will walk away with a smile. There are many worse submarine movies, some of which consist of "I'm in charge!"..."No I'm in charge", while this one has some strategy, some minor humor, some action, and some larger-than-life threats, and some explosions.. all in all worth the rental.

When yet another atomic scientist goes missing behind the Iron Curtain, a private submarine expedition is put together to trail a freighter suspected of being able to lead the crew to what is believed to be the place where the Chinese are conducting nuclear research in preparation for a war. Former submarine commander Jones is contracted to lead the exhibition with a ragtag crew and a submarine in need of maintenance time that is not available to him. With Professor Montel technically in charge with his (female) assistant Professor Gerard by his side, the boat sets out on the mission of observation but with the ever present threat of danger in the hostile waters.

A bit of a romp this one as it revels more in the gaudy sweep of the telling rather than the tension from narrative detail. The plot doesn't really matter so much as it is a simple device for the voyage. Along the way we get personal conflicts, crew tensions and underwater stand-offs as well as some fire-fights. At no point was I hooked but it is rather entertaining in the way that school-boy adventure stories are – full of tough men, sacrifice and action. In this regard it suits the people making it and Fuller directs with simple but bright colours – easy to understand and engage with even if they are too simple to be real. So it is with the characters and plot but it still works. The romantic side of the story is a flop and I didn't see why a female character couldn't just be a character and had to be a love interest (well, obviously I understand why this decision is made, but I didn't see the value of it in the story).

The headlining of Richard Widmark is rarely a bad thing and he fits this tough action drama with his stern delivery and commanding presence. There is no doubting that Darvi is sexy and a good presence when it comes to being coy and flirtatious however when more is asked of her she is found wanting as she lacks the range. The rest of the cast fit in well around them – nobody brilliant of course but everyone able to be at the level required by the material.

Not that intelligent or complex a film but a solid enough wartime action film which will do the job if that's all you're looking for.