Nathaniel Benchley's book "The Off-Islanders" gets turned by Hollywood into yet another "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" clone, and still it was one of the biggest hits of 1966. Panic ensues on America's East Coast when a Russian submarine runs aground, giving an unusually strong cast of players the opportunity to ham like crazy. Alan Arkin, barking orders in Russian, is probably the worst offender (although he did receive an Oscar nomination for Best Actor!); Carl Reiner is inept as a family man taken hostage by the Russkies. Brian Keith and Eva Marie Saint both do okay work (and Saint has never looked lovelier), but the overlong film substitutes noise for witty satire. Norman Jewison directed the proceedings as if it were a traffic-jam, though his finale (with tiny Johnnie Whitaker in trouble on the roof) provides the human uplift the audience needs--we certainly could have used more of that in the earlier sequences. ** from ****
