Opération dans le Pacifique

... in that it is overall what I would expect from the genre and the actor. John Wayne stars as Lt. Cmdr. Duke Gifford, the first mate aboard a US Navy submarine fighting in the Pacific theater during WWII. He and his fellow submariners brave depth charges and leaky hulls while battling Japanese forces.When they make it back to base, Duke tries to rekindle the flame with his ex-wife, Navy nurse Lt. Mary Stuart (Patricia Neal), but she's also seeing Navy airman Lt. Bob Perry (Philip Carey). Ward Bond, of John Ford's stock company (although this is not a Ford film) and Milburn Stone also make an appearance.

The submarine action is exciting and well-executed, with fine miniature work and editing. Things really bog down, though, when the plot moves back to base and the tired love triangle comes to the forefront. The opening scenes, involving the rescue of a group of nuns and small children, is very corny. All-in-all, I liked the movie well enough, and I would recommend it for fans of John Wayne action films.

I love this movie for two reasons:

1) It causes me to relive my submarine war patrols in WWII. 2) It's a typical John Wayne movie.

It would probably not excite a viewer who does not care for John Wayne or war movies, but for anyone who participated in WWII in submarines, it's a must have.

For the current generation, it would be worthwhile just to get the feel of how things were in those days. For many of my vintage, watching this movie over and over, as I do, is a priceless reminder of those days when a few did so much for so many.

Duke E. Gifford (John Wayne) is second in command of the USS Thunderfish, a submarine which is firing off torpedoes that either explode too early or never explode at all. It's a dilemma that he'll eventually take up personally. Even more personal is his quest to win back his ex-wife (Patricia Neal), a nurse; but he'll have to win her back from a navy flier who also happens to be his commander's little brother.

We know this movie is going to be an eye-roller during the opening scene in which the Thunderfish is transporting two nuns, a baby and a group of orphans who go running past a ludicrously tolerant crew as they're trying to sink a Japanese ship. While the action scenes are good, nearly every human moment in this film is phony; and the few that aren't are thanks to the usual expert performance from Patricia Neal, not from writer-director George Waggner.

The special effects and production values in this submarine drama are okay, but occasionally we'll see a cable pulling a torpedo or a night-time sky that has a ceiling and a corner. Max Steiner's score underlines every banality in the script and then underlines it twice more. At one point a crew member laughs at the Hollywood hokum in the Cary Grant film, "Destination Tokyo." If only he could have been out in the audience for his own picture.

Good warfare movie well starred by John Wayne as Duke E Gifford , a sub-officer during the Pacific campaign and in the Pearl Harbor zone who surveys the area and diving under water . The film starts with a foreword : ¨When the Pacific Fleet was destroyed by the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor , it remained for the submarines to carry the war to the enemy. In the four years that followed our undersea craft sank six million tons of Japanese shipping including some of the proudest ships pf the ImperiaL Navy. Fifty-two of our submarines and thirty-five hundred officers and men were lost. It is to these men and the entire silent service that this picture is humbly dedicated ¨. At the beginning Wayne and crew rescue nuns and children from a Pacific island . Later on , in Pearl Harbor is developed a loving triangle between Wayne, Patricia Neal and Philip Carey . After that, the submarine commanded by Ward Bond and John Wayne attacks freighters and cruisers, executing on varied activities as interception and rescue . But in attack on freighters, torpedoes fired at ideal angle hit target failed to explode as the torpedoes lead a hit right under the stack and nothing happens.

The movie contains warlike action with battles well assembled , thrills, emotion and a love story. Passable special effects by F . Koenekamp though with various scale models and some stock-footage. Acceptable production design and enough budget by Warner Bros , and very superior compared with those at John Wayne 's habitual studio such as Republic or Poverty Row , as Wayne played several more for them . As technical adviser appears Vice-Admiral Charles Lockwood who was commandant of American subs in Pacific. With John Ford's usual players as Ward Bond, Jack Pennick and of course the great Wayne and brief secondary roles for William Campbell and Martin Milner. It's a cool realization with roaring battle scenes and full of emotion , suspense and romance. This large-scale picture is professionally directed by George Waggner and it packs a splendid score by the classic Max Steiner and appropriate cinematography by Bert Glennon . The film is dedicated to the men who lost their lives in submarines and to the United States Navy for its aid and cooperation in making this picture possible, our grateful thanks.

This movie, which i revisited on German and English DVD yesterday is definitely more in the B Movie of the Sub Marine Genre. They could have learned from watching Destination Tokyo more closely, as this was with all its limitations still a fine movie and much less a strange flag waver whilst closer to the actual war time. Ward Bond and John Wayne still look like somebody stole their horses and don't know where to go, the submarine is spacious as an Ikea show room and the stress level when depth charged more like a tenant being annoyed with next door noise when watching Super Bowl. What did work quite good was the Wayne - Neal relationship, which you will see much more developed and mature in Harm's Way about 20 years later. Not urgent to watch.