Fer-de-Lance

The Navy nuclear sub Fer de Lance is in South America to pick up an international team of SeaLab scientists conducting pressure research. This includes the science support, medical research and diving teams. Meanwhile, one of the sailors on shore leave buys a basket full of poisonous fer-de-lance snakes to bring back on board as souvenirs. Of course the snakes escape and start biting people, and while that doesn't seem to kill them, they start hemorrhaging and go into shock. One of the stricken crew is manning the trim system and the other is at the helm and so the sub goes into a quick dive to the bottom of the ocean floor.

There's a lot that I like about this movie, such as the claustrophobic feel of it taking place in a Navy sub. But most of all, I like the intelligent dialogue, even the parts that I didn't understand. I enjoy all the Navy speak. Drifting at a depth of 290 feet, they want to bring it up to 190, so they "blow the main ballast." But they rise too high, so then the order is to "flood her back down" to 190. Unfortunately, that's when the crew members really start getting sick and the uncontrolled descent happens. With the senior officers in the torpedo room checking on the first two crew members who were discovered unconscious, they're away from the control room (the conn) when the sub starts to nosedive. Lieutenant Whitehead was left in charge and he's not making good decisions. The Chief of the Boat (the COB), though lower in the chain of command, is the most experienced sailor on board and he tells the lieutenant what to do instead. "Back full, get the stern down." "Redline it." "Flood her just enough to take hold." "We're slowing down, now blow everything." It might have worked, except the helmsman falls unconscious and instead of surfacing they go into a deep dive. End result: the sub is wedged in by rocks, the snakes are still on the loose, and the oxygen will run out in 12 hours.

The crash is pretty exciting. The surviving crew and passengers work together on rescuing the sub. This movie is a suspenseful drama about extricating the sub off the ocean floor and less about the snakes. The Weapons Officer, Lieutenant Nicholson, is competent but young and looks to the COB for advice. COB says, "You take the conn." The lieutenant replies, "I've got five years in, mostly shore duty. You're the COB, Russ, tell me what to do." Lots of snappy dialogue. The Italian and Japanese divers get in on the action too. The doctor helps with the scuba tank air mixture and decompression procedures.

I paid closer attention on my second viewing because I didn't want to miss anything that was said. Yes, I've seen this movie more than once. I'll admit, the premise is kind of laughable, but it really grew on me. David Janssen plays Russ Bogan, the COB. He looks the part – he never looks like he's acting. He's an effective leader and the exchanges he has with the others are sharp. Ivan Dixon is also very good. And Richard LaPore too. All are very low key and solid, giving the impression that aside from the knucklehead who brought the snakes on board, this is a very professional crew.

I found it to be an absolutely first-rate, really enjoyable movie.

Back in 1974 when this TV-Movie first aired, I saw the first twenty minutes or so and was enthralled by the premise: A submarine trapped at the bottom of the ocean with a pack of deadly snakes slithering around. It seemed like a can't miss thriller. Because I was a kid though, I had to go to bed! I recently found the film on video and was ecstatic to finally see the whole show. However, I should have let my childhood dream of a can't miss thriller be as this movie was incredibly bad. It is very cheap looking, even for that time period and the actors play their scenes with so much indifference that it's hard to care about their plight. The biggest mistake is that the snakes are only peripheral to the plot. Most of the movie is taken up with the crew's attempts to dislodge themselves from the rocks they are trapped against, making it more of an adventure film than a thriller and it's not even a good adventure film. At least I now know why the film was so hard to find all of these years. WKRP fans might want to check it out for an early look at Frank Bonner (AKA Herb Tarlek) as the dopey sailor who brings the snakes aboard the sub.

Fer De Lance (1974)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The screw of a submarine has good and bad news. The good news is that they are stuck on the ocean floor with boulders holding them down. The bad news is an idiot brought several deadly snakes on board that can kill within minutes of their bite. This made for TV flick is pretty good for the first hour but after that thing get tad bit boring, although the ending is good. The second half takes the focus off the snakes, which I feel was a mistake. There's no real violence to speak of but the director uses this to his benefit. David Janssen and Hope Lange star.

'Fer-de-lance' or 'Snakes on a Submarine' is an unfairly neglected TV-chiller, often misguidedly pooh-poohed by glib Interweb philistines, this barnacle-tight 70s subaquatic shocker is kept excitingly afloat by the ballast of its above average cast of fine actors, including the delightful Hope Lange, ruggedly handsome Jason Evers, and authoritatively headed by the ridiculously suave and wholly likeable David Janssen as capable naval officer Russ Bogan. For reasons nonsensical, cretinous submariner Compton (Frank Bonner)foolhardily sneaks a bag of lethal snakes onboard, and before you can say 'Darwin Awards Winner' said submersible vessel is deleteriously riddled with venomous, silently striking reptiles! And for additional B-Movie bathos, the stalwart science vessel 'Fer-de-lance' disastrously finds itself perilously scuppered on a precarious rock shelf 1000 ft below the surface!

Avid TV movie-loving fans won't be able to submerge their icy terror as the luckless crew plummet ever closer to their abysmal watery doom! The intense pressures finally reaching fever pitch as these terminally toxic, sinisterly slithering stowaways start to make their poisonous presence felt! The claustrophobically creepy 'Fer-de-lance' remains a buoyant B-Movie with a fang-tastic, fear-flicked premise, a squirmingly good score by the gifted composer Dominique Frontiere, and beloved TV icon David Janssen is just the man to stamp out these ferociously fanged fugitives! And the more obsessive B-Movie fans might be interested to know that snake smuggling simpleton Frank Bonner also starred in cult psychotronic freakshow 'Equinox'.

Fer-De-Lance is a nice little suspenseful thriller. Snakes, called the Fer-de-Lance ("lance head" in French), is a generic name for vipers and quite poisonous. They have been sneaked on board a research submarine, coincidentally named Fer-de-Lance, by one of the crew to play a trick on the Captain. The snakes escape and bite a few of the personnel. Because of this, the sub loses control and sinks to the bottom of a South Ocean trench and also beneath a landslide. All of this happens within the first 20 minutes and the rest of the movie time is spent in the crew trying to evade the snakes and getting the sub loosened from the rocks.

This movie moves quickly and without much characterization. But that's okay, the characters, though they come from various races, mean nothing to the story. What's important is the race against time to re-surface the sub before it runs out of oxygen for the crew to breathe and before the snakes kill more crew members. What adds to the suspense is the musical score by Dominic Frontiere, which is spot on in catapulting the movie from scene to scene.

The only part of the movie that I'm critical of is the filming of the undersea scuba scenes. They are dark, sometimes out of focus and with debris flying in front of the camera blocking the action. I would think that's done to disguise the fact that the underwater set was small and a large submarine was not really used. But what was being accomplished got across to the viewer, so no harm. The movie is a nice little made-for-tv thriller.