Torpedo Run (1958)

This is a reasonably well-done tale of a submarine commanded by Glenn Ford, with Ernest Borgnine as his friend and executive officer, during World War II.Ford and Borgnine are called back from the Philippines to Pearl Harbor, leaving Ford's wife and little girl behind. By the time Ford and Borgnine take their boat out, the family has been captured. Ford pursues the big Japanese aircraft carrier, the Shinaru, but it's being deliberately shielded by a transport carrying a thousand captives of the Japanese. The captives include Ford's own family, and he knows it, but he's forced -- against the urgent pleas of Borgnine -- to take a shot at the Shinaru. He misses and sinks the transport instead.This leaves him understandably bitter. He takes his boat directly into Tokyo Bay and takes another shot at the Shinaru. This time his torpedoes are intercepted purposefully by a Japanese destroyer. After this dangerous venture he is barely able to get his boat back to Pearl Harbor, passing out in a tormented sleep for three days.A final attempt at the carrier leads him to Kiska in the Aleutian Islands, which Ford considers a dead end. As well he should. This is late 1942. The Battle of Midway was over. The Japanese still held some territory in the Aleutians but it was practically uncontested. Nobody wanted the Aleutians. There's nothing there but sea lions and bird, and the weather is lousy. There were some bloody encounters in the fog and snow but in the end the Japanese withdrew, perhaps out of boredom.The unlikely prospect of finding a big Japanese carrier there aside, this is pretty well done. It's unsparing in some ways. There are a few flashbacks to the happy times that Ford, his family, and Borgnine spent together, but in the end the wife and little blond girl die. A more traditional ending would have reunited them somehow.The visual effects are effective too. And there is a good deal of tension in the scene in Tokyo Harbor, when Ford is negotiating a mine field. After the final attack on the Shinaru, the submarine is sunk. The majority of the crew escape using aqua lungs and are rescued by a companion boat, but six men are left behind to die. When he's pulled aboard the rescue boat, one of the first things Ford asks is the names of the men who didn't make it -- an admirable touch.Borgnine is a little more humanistic than the skipper. This is a traditional conflict: the sympathetic second-in-command and the stern and by-the-book skipper. At that, Glenn Ford is not just tough, he's almost miraculously indifferent to pain. When they are depth-charged, Ford falls and breaks the bone in his upper arm. The pharmacist's mate puts a small splint over the fracture and Ford carries on -- giving orders, donning his escape gear, floating to the surface -- as if nothing were wrong. I remember meeting a stranger as he emerged, loaded, from a bar and managed to fall down while trying to get into his car. "I think I broke my fibia," he said thickly. And indeed I could feel the grinding of a fractured bone in his shin. By the time the ambulance arrived, it could no longer be said that he was feeling no pain.As a submarine movie, this is no masterpiece but it's above average. Ford is in his minimalist mode, not animated by hatred as in "The Big Heat," but the interpretation is believable enough. There are times when Borgnine seems to be reading his lines from cue cards but he's such a jolly, good-natured guy that it's difficult not to like him. And this is one of the few instances from this period when the inclusion of the hero's romantic interest is justified. Without the corny scenes of his wife an family, we wouldn't be able to understand Ford's character.

TORPEDO RUN is a decent film and much of the film is pretty exciting. However, it suffers from a serious glut in the genre--there are just so many really, REALLY good submarine films. Just off the top of my head, DESTINATION TOKYO, OPERATION PACIFIC, RUN SILENT RUN DEEP, CRASH DIVE, THE ENEMY BELOW and the amazing DAS BOOT all come to mind as great sub films--all of which clearly surpass TORPEDO RUN. However, if you haven't had too much of all this sort of film, then by all means give this film a look.The film stars Glenn Ford and Ernest Borgnine. Ford's character and performance are very quiet and intense--almost reminiscent of Captain Ahab but in a more subdued way. Borgnine, on the other hand, while not the official star of the film seemed to have a better and more interesting role as the second in command who is friends with Ford but a bit worried about his boss' mental state. The reason this is a concern is that apparently Ford's wife and daughter are aboard a Japanese prisoner ship that their sub accidentally sinks (this is WAY too coincidental a plot device--I mean, what are the chances?!?). However, despite the ridiculousness of the plot, the battle sequences are taut, well executed and the special effects are very good. You can't see the sides of the pool in which they filmed the underwater scenes (something you can see in many other sub films--even some of the ones listed above) and only once did I clearly notice a string pulling one of the torpedoes through the water (again, it's unfortunately common to see this in other sub films).So what we have is a fairly good and typical film of the genre that is impeded a bit by a hard to believe plot twist. However, decent performances (particularly by Borgnine) still make this reasonably good entertainment.

Another submarine movie. This one is now a standard for the genre. All that tension. It makes you wonder why they can't all just get along. Even the best of friends seem to fall out when they get cooped up in a submarine. Glenn Ford and Ernie Borgnine are best buddies and Captain and Exec aboard the Greyfish. Best of buddies, of course, until Glenn Ford is forced to make a decision Ernie disagrees with - and here we go again. Cary Grant and Burt Lancaster, Ronald Reagan and Arthur Franz, Glenn and Ernie, etc. We never seem to get tired of the clichés. Let me make this one point though. For once, we don't have the usual cast of characters. No wise guy called Brooklyn, no homey coyoot called Texas, and no hayseed from Nebraska called, well Nebraska. Or maybe Junior. Remember him with the freckles and the cowlick? There isn't much point in going into the story. You've seen it before. You've probably seen this movie before. It's no Das Boot, but for what it is, it holds it's own.I never understood Glenn Ford. He really needed to lighten up. I don't think I ever saw the man smile - never mind laugh. He always seemed to be barely in control of some unexplained rage. I don't know what he was like personally, but if his acting was any reflection of the man, one might wonder why he never made the front page of The Hollywood Reporter.

Read all of the posted comments pertaining to the movie. Seems some viewers thought the Greyfish was going after a Battleship, but the evasive target was a Japanese Carrier and it looked like a big one. Based on my knowledge of WW II Submarine warfare events, I think it is partially based on some actual events. Also, in response to one commenter's thoughts about Momsen Lungs: This invention was successfully used in October 1944 to bring 8 sailors to the surface from the USS Tang (SS 306) after it sank in 180 feet of water in the East China Sea. I served on submarines in the mid 1950's and used the Momsen lung to ascend 100 feet in a training tank. Two years later the device was abandoned in favor of the so called "blow-and-go" method of free ascent to the surface. I made this ascent in the same training tank from a depth of 50 feet. Like some of the folks that commented on the movie, I too watch all the submarine movies that I can. Seen some of them three or four times. Last comment, there IS info to be found on the Internet pertaining to the Momsen lung.