A rousing, action-filled WWII film, with a powerful cast and a good story, DESTINATION TOKYO remains an effective war drama to this day. Though there are many cameo stories within the framework of the film, the actual protagonist is the submarine in which its characters serve, the USS
Copperfin. Leaving a West Coast port on Christmas Eve, the sub heads out into the Pacific. Sub commander Capt. Cassidy (Cary Grant) has his secret orders: the destination is Tokyo, where Cassidy is to put ashore a meteorologist (John Ridgely) who will obtain vital data for future air raids over
the Japanese metropolis.
More than a competent action film, DESTINATION TOKYO, under the sensitive direction of Delmer Daves, is a human story of the lives of those brave (and some not-so-brave) individuals who serve as submarine crewmen. The intimate feel of submarine life is ever-present in the film, from the
claustrophobic confinement to the wonderful camaraderie of the shipmates. Cary Grant is of particular interest as the sub-commander in that he is supposedly from Kansas, and it's interesting to watch him trying to play against type.
A fascinating sequence occurs about two-thirds of the way through the film when everything stops for a 15-minute propaganda essay as Grant writes a letter home to the wife and kids. We learn in this mini-documentary how the Germans and the Japanese, our enemies, are ethnically and racially simply
no-goodniks, and how the Russians and the Chinese, our allies, are good, solid, strong folk who will always do right. Of course, ten years later these racially motivated evaluations would be largely denied. By the mid-Seventies, many, if not all, prints of the film were lacking this embarrassing
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