After watching the great "Crimson Tide", I sought out to see more legendary submarine flicks. And while I was in Blockbuster, I saw "Run Silent, Run Deep" on the shelf and I remembered that movie being mentioned in "Crimson Tide" during the whole "submarine movie trivia" sequence on the bus. And the question that was asked was who the submarine commander in this movie was. And the guy answered "That guy with the ears and the mustache, Cary Grant." For those of you don't know what the answer was, it was really Clark Gable, and those massive ears and the thin 'stache were his trademarks throughout his career.
And once I picked up the DVD case, I showed it to my mother and she immediately saw the two actors on the front (Gable and Burt Lancaster) and told me how famous those two were. But the truth is, I didn't even know who those two guys were, obviously because of my young age at 17. But after I decided to rent it since it couldn't do any harm, my mother told me about the kind of acting legends that Gable and Lancaster were on the ride back home. But of course, it was a bunch of romance flicks that she told me about (Gone with the Wind, Elmer Gantry etc.), but I knew that if Gable and Lancaster were practically legends, and that this was a submarine film, I knew I might've started loving this. And strangely enough, I did. And I didn't even care for the fact that it was black and white, and the fact that it's 51 years old.
When it came to movies, I realized for the first time that my mother was right about Gable and Lancaster. Those two had real acting skill and were 2 of the best I've ever seen. But now in Hollywood we get too many male/female models who act and they have no talent. But I get to see what it was like in the old days when Hollywood cared about talent over money, fame and hotness.
Clark Gable is the submarine commander named P.J "Rich" Richardson. Rich is haunted by his memories of a Japanese battleship that destroyed his sub and his crew. For over a year, he dwells on that memory and wants vengeance more than anything. And then when a younger guy named James Bledsoe (Lancaster) heads a new sub that would be heading out into the Pacific to combat the Japanese, Rich abruptly takes command after convincing his superiors. And of course, Bledsoe isn't too happy about it but keeps his cool. And during the mission, Rich disobeys orders just to get the sub into the restricted areas which pushes the crew to planning on a mutiny, and causes tensions to rise between the two commanding officers (and I guess this is how Crimson Tide got that idea ).
The acting is excellent, thanks to Gable and Lancaster, we can feel the tension going on between these two. Oscar-winning acting in the 1950's was no different than it is today, and Gable and Lancaster could exhibit powerful human emotion especially when the 2 men clash over the safety and lives of the crew. And you're gonna find yourself siding with the both of them; you might side with Rich because of his quest for revenge even though he has to be doing the unethical to achieve his goal and Bledsoe just cares about the lives of the crew and even risked the sub being spotted when he ordered them to rise up to prevent a crew member from drowning. But by the end, the 2 men basically become each other when Rich realizes that revenge might not be worth it and when Bledsoe decides to go after the Japanese destroyer even when they're on their way home. Excellent character development to go along with the great story.
The action was, for its time, very well done. To be honest I expected much worse from the special effects, but you can still see what's going on with all the torpedoes and the subs underwater. And especially the explosions of the ships, while they were black and white, they still captured the grim reality of warfare on the ocean.
Also the thrills will make your heart pound like it did to mine and if the thrills were any more thrilling, I would've fainted. The scene at the end when the two subs face-off is among the best underwater battles I've seen in my life. The suspenseful part came when the fighter planes were dropping the bombs onto the sub underwater, and when one of the bombs hits the top of the sub and rolls over to explode and barely misses is when I nearly bit my fingernails off. And this was all perfectly edited and directed by the genius Robert Wise.
And another thing, that pin-up girl that the crew slaps on its back-side before battle is a total icon to me and it's hilarious. I wish that I had a poster like that at home, haha, but that's just the boy in me talking. And I think that was even referenced in "Die Hard" when John McClane pats a similar poster of a girl on the wall, and given Die Hard's reputation, that has clearly gotta be saying a lot about "RSRD". And I'm gonna remember that part forever because it displays the crew's humanity as men.
I'll admit that I said before that "Crimson Tide" was my favorite submarine movie of all time, but now I'm on the fence, because "Crimson Tide" took the idea of two submarine superiors clashing, from RSRD. And I'm not sure when I'm gonna decide. But anyway, this is a classic in its own right with two legendary actors and a great story about vengeance set in World War II.
And once I picked up the DVD case, I showed it to my mother and she immediately saw the two actors on the front (Gable and Burt Lancaster) and told me how famous those two were. But the truth is, I didn't even know who those two guys were, obviously because of my young age at 17. But after I decided to rent it since it couldn't do any harm, my mother told me about the kind of acting legends that Gable and Lancaster were on the ride back home. But of course, it was a bunch of romance flicks that she told me about (Gone with the Wind, Elmer Gantry etc.), but I knew that if Gable and Lancaster were practically legends, and that this was a submarine film, I knew I might've started loving this. And strangely enough, I did. And I didn't even care for the fact that it was black and white, and the fact that it's 51 years old.
When it came to movies, I realized for the first time that my mother was right about Gable and Lancaster. Those two had real acting skill and were 2 of the best I've ever seen. But now in Hollywood we get too many male/female models who act and they have no talent. But I get to see what it was like in the old days when Hollywood cared about talent over money, fame and hotness.
Clark Gable is the submarine commander named P.J "Rich" Richardson. Rich is haunted by his memories of a Japanese battleship that destroyed his sub and his crew. For over a year, he dwells on that memory and wants vengeance more than anything. And then when a younger guy named James Bledsoe (Lancaster) heads a new sub that would be heading out into the Pacific to combat the Japanese, Rich abruptly takes command after convincing his superiors. And of course, Bledsoe isn't too happy about it but keeps his cool. And during the mission, Rich disobeys orders just to get the sub into the restricted areas which pushes the crew to planning on a mutiny, and causes tensions to rise between the two commanding officers (and I guess this is how Crimson Tide got that idea ).
The acting is excellent, thanks to Gable and Lancaster, we can feel the tension going on between these two. Oscar-winning acting in the 1950's was no different than it is today, and Gable and Lancaster could exhibit powerful human emotion especially when the 2 men clash over the safety and lives of the crew. And you're gonna find yourself siding with the both of them; you might side with Rich because of his quest for revenge even though he has to be doing the unethical to achieve his goal and Bledsoe just cares about the lives of the crew and even risked the sub being spotted when he ordered them to rise up to prevent a crew member from drowning. But by the end, the 2 men basically become each other when Rich realizes that revenge might not be worth it and when Bledsoe decides to go after the Japanese destroyer even when they're on their way home. Excellent character development to go along with the great story.
The action was, for its time, very well done. To be honest I expected much worse from the special effects, but you can still see what's going on with all the torpedoes and the subs underwater. And especially the explosions of the ships, while they were black and white, they still captured the grim reality of warfare on the ocean.
Also the thrills will make your heart pound like it did to mine and if the thrills were any more thrilling, I would've fainted. The scene at the end when the two subs face-off is among the best underwater battles I've seen in my life. The suspenseful part came when the fighter planes were dropping the bombs onto the sub underwater, and when one of the bombs hits the top of the sub and rolls over to explode and barely misses is when I nearly bit my fingernails off. And this was all perfectly edited and directed by the genius Robert Wise.
And another thing, that pin-up girl that the crew slaps on its back-side before battle is a total icon to me and it's hilarious. I wish that I had a poster like that at home, haha, but that's just the boy in me talking. And I think that was even referenced in "Die Hard" when John McClane pats a similar poster of a girl on the wall, and given Die Hard's reputation, that has clearly gotta be saying a lot about "RSRD". And I'm gonna remember that part forever because it displays the crew's humanity as men.
I'll admit that I said before that "Crimson Tide" was my favorite submarine movie of all time, but now I'm on the fence, because "Crimson Tide" took the idea of two submarine superiors clashing, from RSRD. And I'm not sure when I'm gonna decide. But anyway, this is a classic in its own right with two legendary actors and a great story about vengeance set in World War II.