Atlantic Convoy

John Beal and Lloyd Bridges work at an US Navy base in Iceland run by captain Bruce Bennett. They're there to safeguard the convoy route from the United States to Britain, spot the German U-boats from the air and bomb them to the bottom of the Atlantic, and to rescue survivors. They've just picked up some of the last, Virginia Field shepherding some orphans to the United States, including Clifford Severn. Bennett also inspects the commercial ships in the harbor, like Victor Kilian's fishing smack. But not everyone is who he -- or is it she? -- appears to be.

There's a respectable amount of heil-ing by the nasty Nazis in this definite wartime programmer, but director Lew Landers keeps things moving along at a brisk pace. He was never a distinguished director, just one of those guys who came in on time and budget and kept the product rolling out the studio gates. When the B movie died off, he directed TV shows in enormous quantity. Here he is at work, with a decent script and an entertaining product. The only thing that strikes me as poor is some of the foley work in the fist fight, and that would have been added after Landers had moved on to the next of the dozen movies he directed in 1942. He died in 1962, age 61.

Lew Landers was a very prolific director during many years, several decades, all kinds of films: thrillers, horror, adventure, westerns, comedies. And also war films, especially during WW2, propaganda films. Very short, fast paced, and not widely known movies. Lew Landers was a big provider of such stuff, and those movies were not that bad, if you keep in mind that they all were propaganda. This one is interesting for those who have never heard nor seen any propaganda films of this period. But for those old timers like me who have seen so many of them...Bruce Bennet often played Nazis in war films of the forties.

This was 68 minutes pretty well spent. Seldom do you get an inferior picture from Lew Landers, and on what seems like a 19 dollar budget. This one is about Nazis in the North Atlantic and a Navy plane squadron that tries to ride herd on them, if I might mix metaphors. But guess what? There is a traitor somewhere in their midst who is tipping off the U-boats (I'll bet you guessed). All concerned do a workmanlike job selling the thin plot, especially Base Commander Bruce Bennett. Virginia Field was appealing as the female in the picture and a young Lloyd Bridges is in attendance with little to do. The main character, however, is John Beal and he was bland as well as good.

Apparently this film is hard to come by, as the DVD copy I bought was barely passable in spots - very dark. But I would say it was worth the trouble and money as the movie moved along without hitches or 'bog-down' interludes. Allow for some plot contrivances and don't ask too many questions, as it is only a 68 minute "B" at bargain prices.

Quite reasonable for its period as a B movie on a small budget. Interesting for sight of the young Lloyd Bridges (who hardly has a line in the whole film) and since it is now appearing on UK Channel 48, where it is likely to recur a few times, giving a chance to see a film rarely available - and certainly in better presentation than is suggested for the DVD in the previous review. One element which may entertain some connoisseurs of incidental detail is the presence of perhaps the poshest cabin boy ever to have gone to sea, presumably straight from an elocution class. Passes an hour pleasantly as a period piece.

The title sounds more like a rather low-key British war movie; and it plays rather like one as well, despite the presence of all-American boys John Beal, Larry Parks and Lloyd Bridges.

Bruce Bennett is top-billed, but the earnest young Beal is obviously the real star of this competent little time-filler in which his path crosses that of an offbeat pair of Nazi sleepers assigned to Iceland.

The acting is generally good, the model work not so.