Commando de la mort

Passable warlike movie with two brave officers : James Franciscus/Jeffords and Ronald Allen/Ashurst who must lead a mission in a risked attack on Sicily coast , as well as a loving triangle takes place between Jeffords and Alison -Elizabeth Shepherd- , Comdr. Ashurst's wife . This exciting film contains cold war heroics , non stop excitement , and full of tension and intrigue . It starts in English Channel 1942 where a British Convoy is sailing and the German Nazis are deployed in the Mediterranean theater in WWII . An American Lt. Comdr. Jeffords , R.N.V.R. (James Franciscus) , serving under the British Royal Navy in 1942 , is assigned along with Comdr. Ashurst, R.N. (Ronald Allen) to blockade the island of Malta and told to formulate a plan to destroy the Nazi arsenal in Sicily . Their job : hit it head-on , their target hell-one-earth ¡ . As they have to destroy the "glider bombs" there to be used against Allied shipping , as the Nazis have such destructive weapons , the world's first smart bombs . At the end happens the British attack on the heavily defended dry dock at Sicily in German-occupied Italy during the Second World War .

James Franciscus and Ronald Allen play WWII commando leaders who lead a group of soldiers on a suicide mission to destroy a Nazi naval arsenal on the Sicilian coast by means of dead ships turned into a live bombs . As the valiant soldiers sailed it down the throat of the enemy . They carry out their risked assignment while keeping their activities hidden from outsiders and German boats and airplanes . The movie title "hell boat" comes from a term used by the Nazis for their motor torpedo E-boat . At the ending , they arrive in the enemy port , being a strongly defended position and commanded by stiff Nazi officers . The Germans had a number of reinforced submarines , planes and boats , but the target of the actual attack was the dry dock facilities and the bomb-shelters . The yarn utilizes an often-used plot line of the war movie genre which has two brave soldiers in love with the same woman , such as : ¨Day-D the sixth of June¨(1956) by Henry Koster , ¨Kings go forth¨(1958) by Delmer Daves , ¨Mosquito Squadron¨ by Boris Sagal and ¨633 Squadron¨ by Walter Grauman , among others . The movie actually comes to life by decently realized action shots , they were fairly well-staged ; however , it also contains some stock-shot footage . The intriguing premise gets to satisfy completely , though it was reminiscent of other wartime films by that time , as it has breathtaking moments , including an explosive climax with bombs , rockets and ammo exploding in the depot . It mixes a twisted tale with intrigue , noisy action , bombings , explosion and a triangular love story . It results to be a sustained and predictable story , although partially based on true deeds , upon the Operation Ruthless planned by Ian Fleming . Acceptable acting from James Franciscus and Ronald Allen as two commanders who take on a strong battle of wits , as for the dangerous operation as a woman . The film progresses with Lt. Comdr. Jeffords/James Franciscus training the crews of the ships , even though the crew lacks faith in his command abilities and he must overcome tensions with his antagonist Comdr. Ashurst/Ronald Allen . The highlights of the movie are the violent as well as exciting fights of the crews against Nazis , who successfully fend off an final attack at Sicily port . And moving scenes at the final when the ships penetrate the highly armored stronghold , nets in the port , and explosives blow up under the dry dock . It includes stock WWII , especially when show up some airplanes , and dog-fighting . Atmospheric cinematography by Paul Beeson , Walt Disney's usual cameraman , though an alright remastering is necessary . Being filmed on location , it was shot entirely on location in Malta including the 'Sicily' scenes . Good and enjoyable musical score by Frank Cordell .

The film was financed by Oakmont production , a company exclusively dedicated to warfare films (Submarine X1 , Hell boats , Mosquito Squadron , Thousand plane raid , Last escape) which was a production arm of Walter Mirisch Films. The motion picture was compellingly produced by Lewis J. Rachmil and professionally realized by Paul Wendkos who was imported from Hollywood to helm this English Wartime movie , displaying enough spectacular images to keep things interesting . Apparently , director worked on the film's original screen story with writers Anthony Spinner , Donald Ford , Derek Ford , being based on a story written by S.S. Schweitzer , but Wendkos is uncredited for such . Wendkos whose works remain undervalued in USA directed various TV series and some films as ¨Guns of the Magnificent Seven¨ , ¨Cannon for Cordoba¨, ¨Gidget¨, ¨The Flight¨, ¨The legend of Lizzie Borden¨ and ¨Attack on the Iron Coast¨

Malta is its usual stunning self in this cinematically beautiful film. Why was it not filmed wide? What irritates me is the overly strong U.S. asserter officer shouting at the Brits to do something.

James Franciscus and Elizabeth Shepherd's relationship is ludicrously overblown and misconstructed. Sorry, filmmakers but the silly introduction where she is "starkers" and swimming and flaunts herself at him is priceless. She is so forward and up for IT, it's not true yet her acts all gallant and appears only mildly stirred... It's so awkward - it's clear she is says "Come on bog boy!" with everything she has but he is only modestly aroused. Oh you have to see it to understand it.

I find this film is embarrassing. It's full of bristly macho-ness and "U.S. attitudes will shake up the Brits and sort 'em out" and the Brits deference is bordering on obsequious.

A good story with weak characters. Elizabeth Shepherd is gorgeous and acts strongly but a poor story and and weak direction diminish what could have been a great part.

I hate giving bad reviews but this film seems to come from a time when studios squashed good film-making in the process of simply creating star vehicles and it makes it very difficult for me to watch it happily.

The real star of the film though is Malta.

Low-budget film loosely inspired by the scheme conceived for the famous Operation Ruthless, only adapted to a naval context, and set in the Mediterranean war theater. The production goes unnoticed, achieving a passing grade thanks to its smooth narrative flow and the performances of the lead actors. It doesn't score higher due to the low quality of the supporting characters, the management of extras, and the 1970s idiosyncrasies (incorrect wardrobe, incorrect hairstyles, etc...) that turn out to be unconvincing. It's a shame; with a little effort in philological reconstruction, it could have surely reached a higher cinematic level.

Given that this movie was made in 1970 on Malta, I can only guess that there was an actual MTB on Malta and someone thought "It'd be great to make a movie about MTBs at Malta" and instead of making an actual historical movie, they made this bit of garbage.

To give it credit, the boat that we see the main crew aboard does look good, the uniforms seem spot on (I am not an expert on British Naval Uniforms of WWII however), but the plot is just a throw-away, the combat scenes are hopelessly bad, the special effects are just plain awful (even for 1970) and the technique shown for picking up the two divers didn't exist in 1942 (and the Aqua-lung wouldn't have been in use by the British Navy, either).

Not very entertaining and certainly not educational.

You'd have thought with the concept of total war it might have given film producers more scope to make a film that doesn't revolve around this cliché: a British woman is romantically involved with an American serviceman and a Brit and both male characters have to work together on an extremely dangerous mission in which either only one of them or neither of them will come back . Stop me if you've seen this type of movie before . In the film producers defence they can claim that women won't instinctively feel the need to watch war films hence they need an angle , usually a love triangle , to sell a film to the widest possible audience

HELL BOATS continues this cliché and brings many other clichés to the party . Being a film that features the Royal Navy it means they have to be led by an American in order to boost its box office stateside . As can be expected the best looking member of the cast is the American as well as being the bravest member on the suicide mission . Guns when fired by the good guys never run out of ammo while Germans never seem to be able to shoot straight etc etc

In it self there's nothing fundamentally bad about HELL BOATS . The problem lies that it's a victim of film studios churning out one war film after another which all use the same type of premise and plotting and nothing in this movie sets it apart from its peers . It's not helped either that channel 5 broadcast this movie then followed it up with the brilliantly cynical THE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN immediately afterwards