The Atomic Submarine (1959)

Here's a middling B-movie yarn hampered by long, boring periods of inactivity and the lack of a budget which reduces the supposedly thrilling undersea action to what looks like a model submarine being floated around in a fish tank while someone flashes a torch at it. All right for undemanding fans of the genre, but anybody looking for thrills and adventure would be advised to seek elsewhere. THE ATOMIC SUBMARINE is, at best, a passable thriller which offers the bare minimum of suspense. The plot, which is very mysterious at first, soon descends into non-action with a few simple events and situations (sub chases saucer around ocean for an age before finally confronting it) being dragged out to fill the entire seventy-two minutes, which still feels like quite a long haul.Director Spencer Gordon Bennet - king of the serials - directs with a no-frills style, cutting between exposition, dialogue and action. He has no time for atmosphere build-up or the like, which makes for a very static-looking movie. The actors are fine in their roles - especially Arthur Franz and Brett Halsey (RETURN OF THE FLY) - but once again their characters are boringly predictable military and scientist guys who have the usual petty squabbles seen a zillion times previously, and well telegraphed with it. The photography of the interiors is great, though, with good use of the black and white colours (especially in the pitch black interior of the flying saucer, as our heroes tramp up a white-lit pathway; an excellent idea, cutting costs of production yet creating a spooky-looking interior with it).Unfortunately, it's a shame that the miniature effects are less than impressive, as without much meat on the story it's the effects you are left looking at. Thankfully the film concludes with the appearance of a large, ugly, hairy one-eyed octopus alien. THE ATOMIC SUBMARINE isn't really that bad, and has a few good moments (including violent-for-the-time scenes of men being radiated to a crisp and getting crushed in closing doors) worth sitting through for, but it remains indistinguishable from all the rest without anything really good to make it stay in your memory.

I decided recently to dive into Criterion's collection of films to find some good stuff that I have either wanted to watch for a long time or that I've never heard of. "The Atomic Submarine" fell into the latter category, and I decided to pair it with "Robinson Crusoe on Mars" as a Criterion sci-fi double feature.I was left wondering what it is about "The Atomic Submarine" that compelled Criterion to select it over the hundred other similar 50s sci-fi movies they could have included. It's not much longer than a single episode of any number of television series, and it looks like it was made for about $5. It's entertaining in that kitschy retro way that films of this genre from this time period always are, but I found myself trying hard and failing to see what was so good about it that it warrants inclusion in a list of culturally significant films.The most interesting thing about it to me was that it features the brother of George Sanders in a supporting role.Grade: C

I saw this movie first run at the Strand in Summit, N.J., attracted by the scientific slant of the title. My most vivid recollection is of the stock footage at the beginning illustrating the crisis in the Atlantic. ( This is very similar to the beginning of Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. ) The documentary style had the desired effect on my impressionable mind, and I recall being quite disturbed by it and wondering why I hadn't known about all this, until the fictive nature of the proceedings was reestablished by the appearance of sets and actors. I do recall the general trend of the action as an encounter with an underwater UFO, an idea which has gained traction more recently. Of course, this encounter elicited the usual remarks about the unknown and alien nature of the materials, which I always wondered about, because ... what could it be? I do recall the dialog establishing the alien ship as made of "living material", but beyond that my memory is dim. Nevertheless the experience of it remains a landmark for me.

I honestly didn't think this was too bad. It's most obvious weaknesses are the very poor special effects, which over and over give a very cheap, low-budget feel to the movie. Having said that, the story - while it perhaps lacked the action that modern sci-fi viewers have come to expect - was not bad. Essentially, there's a mystery involving a number of Maritime disasters that have occurred in the Arctic Ocean, and the atomic submarine Tigershark is sent to investigate. Upon its arrival, it discovers that the disasters are being caused by a flying saucer with a somewhat ridiculous looking alien on board who has plans for his species to colonize the earth. If that sounds familiar, it's probably because it's the plot for about 75% of the episodes of "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea!" The Tigershark doesn't seem as advanced as the Seaview was, but you can certainly see this as a direct ancestor of that movie/TV series. The performances here were all right, if at times a little dry. The attempt to create tension between Reef and Nielson didn't work that well, primarily because I just never understood the level of antipathy Reef seemed to have, the ultimate solution as the submarine faced off against the flying saucer seemed in the end a bit too simple and easy, and the last scene was a little bit too corny, quite frankly. Overall, though, this was an enjoyable enough experience. 7/10