Commando dans la mer du Japon

I have watched this film more than once and like it better each time. If Ronald and Nancy Reagan in leading roles are not enough, it has Admiral Chester A. Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific, during World War II, in a speaking role. And it is not just a bunch of flag waving (except in the best sense, of course). It addresses the burdens of command and making difficult decisions unemotionally on the basis of good judgment. Reagan is a submarine commander who has to dive fast, leaving a crew member overboard, because a Japanese destroyer is bearing down on them. His exec and some of the crew despise him for what looks like cowardice. The captain tells his exec exactly how and why he made the decision, but the exec is unconvinced. The exec demands and gets a Navy board hearing, which confirms the decision. It is a remarkable film if only for seeing a president and first lady in romantic film roles discussing marriage. He declines marrying, telling her, "I want a wife and children not a widow and orphans." Stern stuff there. Then when the "hellcats" (submarines dispatched to cut off shipping across the Sea of Japan) are ready to go Admiral Nimitz gives their captains a preparatory speech on camera. I found watching the film in this and other ways exceptional and not your standard Hollywood war rattler. The story wraps up with the exec having to make the same decision Reagan made in the earlier scene. Movies used to have braver messages than today, but that figures.

In general, I really like films about submarines. They seem to have a great sense of drama and tension. However, many years ago when I first saw "Hellcats of the Navy", my reaction was not very positive. Fortunately, now that I've re-watched it, I found it was much better and is actually a worthwhile film. Cerebral and understated...but still worthwhile.

The film is about an American sub and its commander, Casey Abbott (Ronald Reagan). His task is to try to discover a way through the Japanese anti-ship defenses (in other words, mines and nets) so that the Americans can cut off the Japanese supply lines to the mainland. However, his job is made tougher because his first officer doesn't particularly like or respect him. He sees Commander Abbott as too emotionless and cold when it comes to his decisions---and this all begins be a problem after the Commander leaves one of his men behind during a mission.

This is the one and only movie that pairs Reagan with his real life wife, Nancy Davis. That alone is reason to watch it. But the loneliness of command and the life and death decisions made by the captain of a vessel also makes this worth seeing. Could this have been better? Sure...it is a bit too cerebral at times. But still, it is a watchable war film and kept my interest.

I watched this mainly as a curiosity because of the pairing of Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis. As I understand it, this was the only movie they ever made together. I really don't know much about either of them as actors. To me, they're the former president and first lady of the United States, and I don't really recall having seen either of them in any other movie. This was one of Reagan's last movies before he went into television and then politics. I've heard a lot of jokes around Reagan's acting career - but based on this I'd say those have more to do with people not liking his presidency than his acting. I can understand why his career was in "B" movies. He wasn't great in this, but he wasn't bad either.

The movie was a bit formulaic. Reagan played Captain Abbott - a submarine commander in the Pacific in World War II. As the movie opens he has to make a decision that results in the death of a crewman. Coincidentally, that crewman was involved romantically with a nurse named Helen (Davis) - who had previously been involved with Abbott. This set up tension between Abbott and his executive officer, Landon (Arthur Franz) who believed Abbott had been influenced by jealousy.

The movie wasn't bad. There were a few suspenseful scenes as Abbott's sub either attacked or was being attacked by Japanese vessels. I thought it strange that, given the tension and distrust between them, the US Navy would keep Abbott and Landon together, and the whole thing came down to a predictably happy ending for all.

I'd say this movie was OK, as was Reagan's performance. I may have watched it out of curiosity because of Reagan and Davis, but having watched it what really strikes me as interesting was the opening prologue by Admiral Chester Nimitz, who clearly thought that the story of Pacific submariners needed to be told. (6/10)

You have to feel sorry for anybody who tries to write the screenplay for a submarine movie. How is it possible to avoid all the established clichés? The shattered chronometer, the bursting pipe, the ritual commands, the toy submarine nosing through the murk, the wounded skipper lying on the deck and ordering the boat down, the periscope slicing the sea, the tin can approaching at high speed, the pinging sonar gear, the tense sweaty faces, the walloped camera as the depth charge explodes, the conflict between the CO and the Exec, the playful bantering of the crew, a down-the-throat shot.

Added to that are the problems that any Navy movie has. The men have no chance at individual heroism and practically none of being dramatically wounded. (Unless one of them gets appendicitis or has a torpedo fall on him, which happens from time to time.) Basically, the crew are there for comic purposes, so the burden of the drama must fall on the officers. The question can never be about who is going to rush out with his tommy gun and save the rest of the patrol, so it can only be about whose judgment is correct, the skipper or one of his officers. (Sometimes a romantic conflict on the beach is thrown in, but that's rather arbitrary, kind of like the appendicitis patient.) This one isn't too bad, as sub movies go, but it arrives late in the post-war genre. Nobody in it is weak. The enemy is dehumanized, the dialogue trite and exhausted, the action scenes shot on the cheap, and the story is twisted, hard to follow, and sometimes pointless. (Example, midway through the movie a great deal is made of Captain Reagan's having brought back an accurate chart of the Japanese mine fields, but when the subs are sent out en masse it turns out the mines have been moved around so the chart is now irrelevant.) The performers do as well as they can under the circumstances, although Nancy Reagan is definitely in the wrong part here. The right parts would have been those taken by the elderly Bette Davis. The cast has a lot of familiar faces, but none of them memorable because of their having given good performances elsewhere, only memorable because we've seen them so often before.

The director should be spanked. A man is knocked about during a depth charge attack and is taken to sick bay. After he's been treated and bandaged up, there are still trickles of blood down his chin and the side of his face. Once winces at such sloppiness. And there is another painfully staged scene, when Reagan and Davis are saying good-bye. Davis's face is in the foreground. She stares unblinkingly just to the left of the camera's lens while Reagan stands behind and speaks to her over her shoulder. This particular part of cinematic grammar must antedate cinema itself.

Should you see it? Well -- why not. It's a historical curiosity if nothing else.

Most of the comments about this very ordinary war film concerns the fact that it is the only film that co-starred Ronald and Nancy Reagan. Both of them did better work in Hollywood.

The real story is that Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, CINCPAC Pacific Theatre in World War II chose to make a personal appearance in this film about submarines. That's like having Eisenhower or MacArthur make a personal appearance in an army war film. Unheard of.

Nimitz's background was in submarines and our submarine fleet may very well have been the tipping factor in the Pacific War. We did to Japan what the Nazis tried to do to Great Britain, cut off their raw material and food. Nimitz was no hypocrite however. He admitted as much during the Nuremberg trials and that fact saved the Nazi U-Boat commander Karl Doenitz from the hangman for war crimes.

All the clichés about submarine warfare in the pre-atomic era are present in this film. It's a B Picture made just as B Pictures were being phased out of existence. The cast is competent enough, but it's all been done before.

I think the real story is why did Admiral Nimitz choose this submarine film to make an appearance in.