Torpedo Run

1958, Movie, NR, 98 mins

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Ford is a submarine commander whose obsession is to sink a certain Japanese aircraft carrier. Earlier in the war he had stalked the carrier, but it was screening itself with a transport carrying more than a thousand American prisoners from the Philippines to Tokyo, Ford's wife and daughter among them. When he finally launched his torpedoes, he missed the carrier and sank the transport. Borgnine is Ford's executive officer and best friend who has passed up a chance for his own command to stay with Ford. As the chase of the carrier goes on, Ford driving the crew to the breaking point, he and Borgnine have a falling out. Eventually the ship is found, Borgnine and Ford make up, and the carrier is sent to the bottom. The sub, though, is badly damaged and the crew has to make a dangerous escape from the doomed vessel using Momsen lungs. This utterly routine submarine drama manages to hit on most of the cliches peculiar to this subgenre (no pun intended). Ford gives an adequate performance but he just isn't convincing as a man who has accidentally sent his wife and child to the bottom of the ocean and is out to make the enemy pay. Borgnine is better, and one wishes that he had accepted his own command and that we were watching a movie about him rather than about Ford. The rest of the cast is only competent. The wide-screen photography adds nothing to the claustrophobic interiors and only manages to make the exterior shots of the submarine and aircraft carrier look like the models they are--even though the Academy nominated the special effects crew for an Oscar. leave a comment
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Torpedo Run
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