Battle of the Coral Sea

Cliff Robertson skippers a submarine in the South Pacific in 1942 during and after the Battle of the Coral Sea, a slug fest that lost the US more ships than the Japanese but prevented their landing on New Guinea, just across the Torrest Straits from Australia. Subs played no important part in the battle and the American forces had little idea of what they were doing because this was their first real engagement since Pearl Harbor.

It begins with an action scene, Robertson's boat being attacked by enemy aircraft while rescuing some downed flyers. That scene is okay. Then, below decks, the movie begins to macerate. There is always banter among enlisted men in these war movies. It may be about the meaning of FUBAR, as in "Saving Private Ryan", or about the delicate strucure of an ordinary leaf, as in "A Walk in the Sun." Sometimes it's amusing. Here it begins with a silly argument between Bates and the man he thinks stole his chewing gum. The reason for the theft is never explained, nor is the hole in the pants of the thief. It's markedly pointless. When the Exec peers through the scope and sees a Japanese carrier, he exclaims, "Sweet sufferin' sukiyaki." Robertson: "You can say that again." "Sweet sufferin' sukiyaki." Not a lot of effort has gone into the script, but that's not a reflection on Robertson, who delivers his usual solid performance, though some might say stolid.

Sent on a top secret mission about a third of the way through, the script becomes untethered and changes to a Japanese POW camp, one of those camps with a civilized commander who has spent time in America and admires the country but who feels an overwhelming duty to discharge his military obligations. Well, it worked in "The Bridge On the River Kwai." The strenuous work in the prison camp is lightened somewhat by the presence of a pretty blond nurse, who has no facilities to cope with the pneumonia contracted by the executive officer.

Also, living the with Japanese occupiers of the island is the attractive Gia Scala who has declared herself "neutral." But Robertson is disincline to toy with her. His intention is to escape from the island (the size of Manhattan and surrounded by five hundred miles of ocean) and he asks Scala for weapons. "I couldn't possibly do that. Perhaps some knife blades." With barely a glance at her, Robertson snaps, "Get 'em." He needs her to get the knife blades so they can try to escape. She does and they do, but escape is no easy matter. There are casualties. ("Sorry, Peg. I'm afraid I can't make it. You'll have to go on without me.")

The title of the film sounds like an epic along the lines of "Saving Private Ryan" or "The Longest Day." It's not. The battle of the Coral Sea lasts about five minutes at the very end and is largely cobbled together from familiar newsreel footage or miniatures from earlier movies like "Air Force", "Destination Tokyo," and "Gung Ho." If you intend to watch it, don't do it for a lesson in history.

"The characters and incidents portrayed and the names used herein are fictitious, and any similarity to the name, character or history of any person is entirely accidental and unintentional", says the opening credits. That statement is just about the most accurate thing in this film.

The Battle of the Coral Sea was a strategically-important naval engagement fought between the U.S. and Japanese Navies between 4 and 8 May 1942. It stopped a Japanese attempt to carry out an amphibious invasion against Port Moresby, the last Allied stronghold in new Guinea. It also stopped Japanese expansion towards Australia.

However, there is nothing in this movie about the Battle of the Coral Sea until the last ten minutes. The rest is a fairly routine story about POWs and their warders. consequently any viewer interested in learning about the Battle of the Coral Sea is advised to look elsewhere than this mis- named movie.

It's 1942. Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Conway (Cliff Robertson) commands the American submarine USS Dragonfish in the Pacific. He is given a reconnaissance mission and spots the Japanese fleet. Before he could report it, his crew gets captured and he is forced to scuttle his ship. They are transferred to an island prison where they join some Australian captives.

For a war movie, this starts with a lot of peeping at girls' butts. There is a bit of naval action. They use a lot of miniatures and some stock films. Then it's a series of story problems. First, all the Allied soldiers are way too cavalier. When they transfer the submarine crew to the island, there are only about ten of them. I don't know what happened to the rest of the crew. A lot of the prison life feels wrong and the escape is even more wrong. The best part of the movie is probably the last five minute during the Battle of the Coral Sea. It uses a few clips of real footage, but even here, the miniature footage looks so fake. Given the subject matter, this is a disappointment.

I am pleased to see that the vast majority of my IMDB colleagues have already done the heavy spadework required to bury this awful movie. Therefore, there is little for me to add beyond the fact that the film's title, as this review's title indicates, is your classic Hollywood bait and switch. In other words if you tune into this thing hoping to see some classic, naval combat then you will be grievously disappointed since the eponymous clash does not occur until the last five minutes or so and is mostly conveyed through stock footage. The vast majority of this dull dog is comprised of standard sub stuff and sub standard Japanese prison camp stuff (Think midget "Kwai" with a lobotomy). Give it a C minus.

The Japanese lost the 11,000 ton light-carrier Shoho, while the Americans lost the much more valuable Lexington. In addition, each-side had a top-notch CV (Shokaku and Yorktown) damaged. The Japanese had a 3rd carrier, Zuikaku, which was undamaged during the battle. Based on that, the Japanese won the battle, however, their air group was punished heavily. Their carriers were assigned to support the invasion of Port Moresby, and they had suffered a lot of plane losses so that they no longer felt confident they could do this. So, this swings it to an overall draw.

In the end, it would be the Japanese who were hurting more, because the Americans not only had a lot more pilots in reserve, and thus could replace losses more easily, at this point in the war the Japanese Navy had the more experienced pilots. So, losing pilots hurt them more than it hurt the USA. Also, it took nearly 2 months to sail Shokaku back to Japan and repair her, but Yorktown headed for Pearl Harbor and was patched-up and ready for battle (although not fully repaired) in 3 days.

Incidentally, their plane/pilot losses were so heavy that Zuikaku sat out the battle of Midway waiting for replacement pilots. This was a huge mistake since the 5th flight deck would have been invaluable.