The Hunt for Red October (1990) - A stellar cast shines in the first and best Clancy adaptation

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Impressive silver fox Sean Connery painted red and black on this anticipation-building poster for John McTiernan's The Hunt for Red October

The Soviets have built a new submarine propulsion system, which makes their latest invention a silent threat. The technology is used on the mammoth submarine Red October, a vessel with a crew that either wants to defect or who are led by a doomsday-enamored maniac.

 

The Hunt for Red October is written by Larry Ferguson (Highlander (1986)), Donald E. Stewart (Missing (1982)) and David Shaber (The Warriors (1979)), adapting the same-titled 1984 novel by Tom Clancy (Without Remorse (1993)), and directed by New-Yorker master filmmaker John McTiernan (Nomads (1986)), whose 4th film it is.

To begin with it is a bit comical to see great Scotsman Sean Connery (You Only Live Twice (1967)) as a Russian captain, but he is terrific for the part, and he keeps us in a constant vice of paranoia, which keeps us guessing; is he really mad? - Or is it just a bluff?

The cast all-around makes this a deluxe Clancy adaptation - as well as the first of them: James Earl Jones (Law & Order (1993, TV-series)) as the CIA boss is perfect; Alec Baldwin (Along Came Polly (2004)) as protagonist Jack Ryan, and fellow talents such as Scott Glenn (Firestorm (1998)), Stellan Skarsgård (Melancholia (2011)), Sven-Ole Thorsen (The Viking Sagas (1995)), Sam Neill (Daybreakers (2009)) and Fred Thompson (Cape Fear (1991)). It is also a treat that this stern, male-dominated spy story is permitted to play out without a studio-mandated female tangent attached for sex value. The underwater scenes, which have early uses of CGI, work. Jan de Bont's (Kapsalon (1972)) cinematography is simple but precise. Basil Poledouris' (It's My Party (1996)) score is solid support. 

McTiernan cements himself as one of the best American filmmakers in the late part of the 20th century here.

 

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The 13th Warrior (1999) - McTiernan and Co. sink with oversized Muslim hero adventure 

Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) - McTiernan gives the third Die Hard a shot of New York-set adrenaline

Top 10: Best cop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

Top 10: The best adaptations reviewed by Film Excess to date 

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Die Hard (1988) - McTiernan's action masterpiece 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 30 mil. $

Box office: 200.5 mil. $

= Huge hit (returned 6.68 times its cost)

[The Hunt for Red October was released 2 March (USA) and runs 135 minutes. The US Navy were supportive of the film's creation and provided submarines for shooting, as well as advice on how to portray them positively. Connery was paid 4 mil. $ for his performance. Shooting took place from April 1989-? in England, North Carolina, Alaska, Connecticut, Washington and California, including in Los Angeles. The film opened #1 to a 17.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed #1 for another 2 weekends and then remained in the top 5 for another 7 weekends, grossing 122 mil. $ (60.8 % of the total gross). It was the 6th highest-grossing film in North America of the year. Roger Ebert gave it a 3.5/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. It was nominated for 3 Oscars, winning for Best Sound Effects Editing. It lost Best Editing and Best Sound to Dances with Wolves. It was also nominated for 3 BAFTAs, among other honors. McTiernan returned with Medicine Man (1992). Connery returned in The Russia House (1990)); Baldwin in Miami Blues (1990). The Hunt for Red October is certified fresh at 88 % with a 7.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Hunt for Red October?

Hell and High Water (1954) - Submarine action adventure with laudable mission: Prevent Cold War from going nuclear

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Several posters for Samuel Fuller's Hell and High Water remark that 'You see it without glasses in CinemaScope', - undoubtedly hinting at the time's short wave of 3D-film, - the first 3D-wave, - which, just as now, required that the audiences wore silly glasses

Hell and High Water is an atomic scare action adventure sub-marine thriller about a private humanistic-scientific submarine expedition to the Pacific to check out and possibly defuse a secret, Communist nuclear weapons base on an island in the neutral zone.
The film has an exciting premise and a good set-up. It starts with footage from a real nuke going off, provided by the U.S. Government, who insisted that certain colors be altered in case they would "reveal nuclear secrets."
The plot gets constructed around the reluctant, skeptical, realist captain, played without sentimentality by Richard Widmark (Judgement at Nuremberg (1961)) and the idealistic, pacifist professor Montel, played with serenity by Victor Francen (The Big Scare (1964)). As Montel brings his co-scientist professor on-board, he reveals to the stunned submariners that the professor is a fascinating, wildly attractive woman, played by Bella Darvi (Good Little Girls (1971) in her screen debut. She is multi-lingual and never aloof and quickly becomes an object of attraction, but only as almost certain death are over them does the strong, desired captain SPOILER kiss her under the red lights.
The film has good sets and action and was Oscar-nominated for its special effects. It also has a lovely sense of what one Internet commentator calls 'moral certainty', meaning that there's no doubt the Soviets are the enemy, and that our guys are the good ones, (but also that nuclear war should be prevented).
The big challenge for director Samuel Fuller and DP Joseph MacDonald (S.O.S. Ashiya (1964)) with Hell and High Water was to show that the wide, slim CinemaScope-format could also be used to good effect in something as seemingly ill fit for it as a claustrophobic submarine plot. They do that, quite impressively, and thus proved to producer Darryl F. Zanuck that CinemaScope "could be used for anything!"
Hell and High Water is ideal as an afternoon watch, especially for fans of war movies, submarines and/or westerns.

The details:

The reasons that the film never becomes greater than it does, are that it gets long somewhere towards the end of the voyage to the island and on the island itself, and that there are some inconsistencies in the script, which also asks us to take some leaps of faith with it a few times, where I think it comes out a bit weak instead.
The ending is one such, somewhat thick and unbelievable moment, as the enemy nuclear bomber is shot down and crashes on the next island, and its bomb goes off, (why we don't know), and the captain immediately tells his favorite woman professor that her SPOILER father, professor Montel, must have died there. It seems a hurried conclusion, considering the relatively small explosion in sight, until the Government footage is then inserted again.
The film is directed by Samuel Fuller (Underworld U.S.A. (1961)), who reportedly didn't like it and only did it as a favor to Zanuck for standing up for him, when his last film Pickup on South Street (1953) was attacked by J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI. Still, the film isn't at all bad work by Fuller, who added some of the film's best scenes.
Darvi was an interesting, tragic person; a miraculous WWII concentration camp survivor, who had since the war become a drunken gambler in Monaco, where she was found by Darryl F. Zanuck and his wife Virginia, who saw greatness in her and took her to Hollywood and even devised her last name Darvi from their own first names. But Darvi's acting capabilities were limited, and she had a lisp that also sometimes makes her speech hard to understand in Hell and High Water. The finality of her Hollywood career was secured with a sex scandal involving her and Darryl F. Zanuck. Mrs. Zanuck, who had treated Darvi as a kind of favorite niece, packed her bags and shipped her back to Europe. Here she made some ineffectual movie-roles and relapsed to drinking and gambling and eventually killed herself by gas in her Monaco apartment, and was only found after having been dead for ten days in 1971, 42 years old.

Watch the original, CinemaScope-pounding trailer here

Cost: 1.8 mil. $
Box office: 2.7 mil. $ (North America only)
= Uncertainty

What do you think of Hell and High Water and Samuel Fuller's movies?
Other Bela Darvi particulars are welcomed

The Boat/Das Boot (1981) - Petersen's awe-inspiring WWII epic

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The formidable German poster for Wolfgang Petersen's The Boat, using a newspaper-like graphic that seems to set the high-seas drama of the film in poignant relief. The tagline means, 'A voyage to the end of sanity'

In 1942 World War II is in full swing, and German u-boat U-96 heads out to fight in the Battle of the Atlantic.

 

The Boat is written and directed by German master filmmaker Wolfgang Petersen (Ich Werde Dich Töten, Wolf (1971)), whose 4th feature it is. It is an adaptation of the same-titled 1973 autobiographical novel by Lothar-Günther Buchheim (Die Festung (1995)). The original title translates to, 'the boat'.

The Boat is a really suspenseful, West German U-boat WWII epic from the now retired, German filmmaker Wolfgang Petersen (In the Line of Fire (1993)), who specialized in grand tales of men facing incredible elements or enemies. He also directed films like The NeverEnding Story (1984), Outbreak (1995), Air Force One (1997), The Perfect Storm (2000), Troy (2004) and Poseidon (2006).
The Boat is genuine, claustrophobic submarine terror. There are a number of versions available, including a mini-series version and an 'Original Uncut Version' of nearly 300 (!) minutes, but this review is based on the most commonly seen 150 minute version. The Boat is and was at its inception a giant movie, the most expensive German production ever since Fritz Lang's sci-fi masterpiece, Metropolis (1927). It is a spectacle to behold, and cannot and should not be removed from this part of its attraction.
For a suspense film, it is impressive that The Boat 'only' really peaks twice within its 2½ hours, - and still remains 100 % unnerving. This is perhaps due to its ambitious and formidable shoot, which was chronological and ran for a year (!), keeping the cast living almost as real submariners for that period.
The film is impressive and educative for anyone interested in knowing how a German U-boat functioned during WWII. The history is already known, so to speak, when it comes to the German side Nazi depiction of the war, (it's a misguided tragedy in other words), SPOILER and this is one of the rare war epics, where you will follow what for all intents and purposes seem like 'heroes' for a long playing time, - and still not weep a tear, when they are all blown to bits in the end. (At least I didn't.)
One thing that annoyed me was the fact that the large boat crew was made sympathetic in such a degree that it only contained one real Nazi member. I wonder how we would have seen and experienced The Boat, had the soldiers in fact been Nazis. Reading about the point online I gather that it is unclear at best, if naval soldiers were less Nazified than the rest of the German army and people were at the time depicted, and so this critique seem to stand and be justified.
Still, The Boat is one of the great war films of the 20th century, and perhaps one of the greatest German films period. Especially for the war and/or historically interested, this is a must watch.

 

Related post:

 

Wolfgang Petersen: Top 10: Best epic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Approximately 18.5 mil. $
Box office: 84.9 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 4.58 times its cost)

[The Boat was released 17 September (West Germany) and runs 149 minutes - with longer versions also available. The majority of the budget was reportedly spent on constructing the u-boats. Shooting took place in France and Germany from 1979-81, with most of the filming completed in one year, in which the actors were strictly kept out of sunlight to make them pale. The film was afforded the widest release to its day in West Germany, where it reportedly grossed 5.1 mil. $ within its first 2 weeks of release. It made 10.9 mil. $ (12.8 % of the total gross) in North America, most from the original German, subtitled version, although an English dub version was also released. The film was nominated for 6 Oscars, winning none: It lost Best Cinematography (Jost Vacano (Spetters (1980))) to Billy Williams and Ronnie Taylor for Gandhi, Director to Richard Attenborough for Gandhi, Sound Effects Editing to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Editing to Gandhi, Adapted Screenplay to Costa-Gavras and Donald E. Stewart for Missing and Sound also to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It was also nominated for a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and won a National Board of Review award, among many other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 4/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. The Boat is currently voted in as #79 on IMDb's user-generated Top 250, sitting between Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Avengers: Endgame (2019). Petersen returned with The NeverEnding Story (1984). Jürgen Prochnow (Hitman: Agent 47 (2015)) returned in War and Peace/Krieg und Frieden (1982). The Boat is certified fresh at 98 % with a 9.10/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of The Boat?