Hellcats of the Navy

Most of the comments about this very ordinary war film concerns the fact that it is the only film that co-starred Ronald and Nancy Reagan. Both of them did better work in Hollywood.

The real story is that Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, CINCPAC Pacific Theatre in World War II chose to make a personal appearance in this film about submarines. That's like having Eisenhower or MacArthur make a personal appearance in an army war film. Unheard of.

Nimitz's background was in submarines and our submarine fleet may very well have been the tipping factor in the Pacific War. We did to Japan what the Nazis tried to do to Great Britain, cut off their raw material and food. Nimitz was no hypocrite however. He admitted as much during the Nuremberg trials and that fact saved the Nazi U-Boat commander Karl Doenitz from the hangman for war crimes.

All the clichés about submarine warfare in the pre-atomic era are present in this film. It's a B Picture made just as B Pictures were being phased out of existence. The cast is competent enough, but it's all been done before.

I think the real story is why did Admiral Nimitz choose this submarine film to make an appearance in.

US Navy submarines bravely try to penetrate the heavily-mined entrance to the Sea of Japan, in order to sink enemy shipping which is carrying coal, food and iron from China to the Japanese homeland.

On one level a simple war action movie, this film is also a commendable study in the morality of leadership. The central question posed by the movie is whether a commander's duty towards a single seaman in obvious danger outweighs his overall responsibility to his crew.

Ronald Reagan is very good as the straight, correct Captain Casey Abbott. Back at Guam he has a girl, a nurse in the military hospital (Nancy Davis, to give her her professional name). When a frogman who is also a rival for the nurse's affections gets into difficulties, Captain Casey has to try to separate personal and professional motivations.

Casey's Executive Officer, Dan Landon, clashes with his skipper but by a twist of fate finds himself having to make a very similar decision. Will he call the plays differently?

The film works as an uncomplicated war story, but does contain a few infelicities. The submariners are depicted as nice guys in order to enlist viewer sympathy, but this is a little overdone and the sailors come across as childish simpletons, stealing cookies and hiding their dice. Wes Barton has to be portrayed as a popular guy so that we will resent his treatment at the Captain's hands, but to have sailors pleading for a Barton story as he is entering the airlock on a dangerous mission is just unbelievable. The crew of the USS Starfish get sealed orders for a special mission. They are to enter the Straits of Tsushima, land a party on a fortified island, and destroy its defences. Would an ordinary submarine crew really be entrusted with such a specialised task? The frogman sequences are shot in murky water and are hard to follow. Penetration of the minefield channel is effected in a few seconds, when such an undertaking would surely last many hours.

For contemporary viewers, much of the film's interest will lie in the unique experience of watching Ron and Nancy onscreen together. They had been married for five years when "Hellcats" was made, and at the time of writing, 42 years later, they are still going strong. It is tempting, if unwarranted, to scrutinize their lines for significant snippets. Ronald Reagan's character is asked what he will do after the War and he announces, "I'm going into the surplus business." Given his leadership style, some would say that was an accurate prediction of both his gubernatorial performance in California and his presidency. Much of Ron's dialogue is an essay on the burden of leadership, and how only a special few are fitted to bear it. Nancy confides to him, "You know I was fresh out of a bad marriage when we met. I wanted to be sure this time. So we played it safe, until I knew you were Mr. Right." In fairness to the Reagans, that, at least, has proved to be autobiographical.

It seems to me a few reviewers are letting their feelings for Reagan as a president seep into their views on the movie. Probably doesn't help matters that this was his only on-screen pairing with his future first lady, Nancy Davis.

This movie is pretty generic in its conflicts. A captain has to make tough decisions in wartime, decisions that cost people their lives. Considering the budget, the scenes were well shot.

This was one of Reagan's last movies, before he went on to be a pitchman and then a politician.

Also surprising is the participation of Admiral Chester Nimitz playing himself. perhaps Nimitz felt the submariners didn't get their due, with all the war movies being made about pilots and infantry, so he lent his credibility to this film.

If you check your feelings about President Reagan at the door, you can enjoy this film for what it is.

I watched this mainly as a curiosity because of the pairing of Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis. As I understand it, this was the only movie they ever made together. I really don't know much about either of them as actors. To me, they're the former president and first lady of the United States, and I don't really recall having seen either of them in any other movie. This was one of Reagan's last movies before he went into television and then politics. I've heard a lot of jokes around Reagan's acting career - but based on this I'd say those have more to do with people not liking his presidency than his acting. I can understand why his career was in "B" movies. He wasn't great in this, but he wasn't bad either.

The movie was a bit formulaic. Reagan played Captain Abbott - a submarine commander in the Pacific in World War II. As the movie opens he has to make a decision that results in the death of a crewman. Coincidentally, that crewman was involved romantically with a nurse named Helen (Davis) - who had previously been involved with Abbott. This set up tension between Abbott and his executive officer, Landon (Arthur Franz) who believed Abbott had been influenced by jealousy.

The movie wasn't bad. There were a few suspenseful scenes as Abbott's sub either attacked or was being attacked by Japanese vessels. I thought it strange that, given the tension and distrust between them, the US Navy would keep Abbott and Landon together, and the whole thing came down to a predictably happy ending for all.

I'd say this movie was OK, as was Reagan's performance. I may have watched it out of curiosity because of Reagan and Davis, but having watched it what really strikes me as interesting was the opening prologue by Admiral Chester Nimitz, who clearly thought that the story of Pacific submariners needed to be told. (6/10)

I've seen this film a few times and it makes me cringe......And believe me I know my sub films!

Ronny is as stiff as a board throughout the film....In fact, he conveys the claustrophobic feeling of being cooped up in a fleet boat during WWII better than any other film does...He's grim and wooden...It's nigh unto impossible to build up any feelings or emotions for anyone in the cast.

Arthur Franz shines - as always, as the exec.......He's the one guy that manages to rise above the banal (make that abysmal) script and Nathan Juran's limp-wristed direction....It's kinda' like "Ed Wood does WWII".....Araggh!

You can see swipes from all over the place.....The scene with the guys swimming underwater with flaming fuel above was lifted from 1943's "Crash Dive" done by Fox!!!! Also the footage from the scene with the jap sub surfacing was actually Dana Andrew's sub from the same film! Neat huh?....Then you take the underwater scenes with the divers wearing 1950's scuba equipment(!) dealing with the japs....Looks like it too was influenced by Fox - this time from 1951's: "The Frogmen"....Ouch!

The few high points in this film stem from good location shots which appear to be off of Long Beach and Palos Verdes Penninsula aren't bad...No doubt shot on an old Gato class sub that was part of the active reserves....

Take note of the typical cheesy Columbia budget-that's all too obvious! Mischa Bakaleinikoff's (Columbia's in-house composer)hokey soundtrack sounds like sloppy seconds from Columbia's 1955 sub/sci-fi flick: "It came from Beneath the Sea".

This film might have been credible with a decent script, decent direction and decent acting.....But it isn't....

If this movie were a sub wreck, even Bob Ballard wouldn't touch it!

Try watching "Hell Below" if you want to see an outstanding sub film...They don't get much better!