Up Periscope

I was expecting a fairly mediocre and routine "sub flick" and was pleasantly surprised to find an above average and pretty engrossing movie. The story has some grit and conflict, especially in the hostility of the crew for its "by the book" captain, played with convincing war-weariness by the always-reliable Edmond O'Brien, whose efforts are matched by a very young James Garner. Production values are high, and it's worth catching it in letterbox format. Some of the mistakes in commando procedures have been noted, to which I would add the lack of facial camouflage, as Garner's strikingly white face floats conspicuously above the water in his nighttime swim, an easy target for lookouts. None the less, a pretty good war flick.

It's 1942. Submarine Commander Paul Stevenson (Edmond O'Brien) struggle with the life and death of war in the South Pacific. Meanwhile, Navy frogman Lieutenant Braden (James Garner) is having a romance in San Diego with Sally. It turns out that she had been accessing him in secret. With recommendation from her, he is given a secret mission on Stevenson's boat.

This is a solid submarine war movie. While Garner is leading man material, he isn't given enough room to be his charismatic self. It's the early days of his stardom. There is a real submarine and real plane work. Once the movie gets back on land, Garner is by himself and the mission needs to move faster. It's too much waiting and the flashback doesn't help. It's a lot of quietly skulking around. It's not the most exciting of thrills. This is interesting to see an early movie with Garner as the leading man.

Navy frogman goes on super secret mission to steal ultra secret Jap code books. Pretty phony actually - seems the Nips would have shouted "oy li chu dat lee ho phuk di hong fong fuuuuuuuuu!", or "those explosions looked like a ruse, let's check on the code books!". When Garner exited the water he made enough noise to wake the whole island, no real commando would have done that. Still not a bad film, fairly exciting: it had the usual Navy ships during combat footage plus a few "toys in the tub" scenes. I appreciated the submarine; it was cramped, hot, and miserable looking, exactly like the genuine article. I abhor those movie subs that sport hallways and rooms more fitting to the Trump mansion than a Naval vessel.

Up Periscope is the kind of World War II film that was more common actually during the World War II years. It involves a really incredible mission that Navy Lieutenant James Garner is on. At least the Japanese weren't portrayed as these bucktoothed apes.

The film is really a vehicle for Warner Brothers to showcase a pair of their television stars, Garner and Edd Byrnes from 77 Sunset Strip. Byrnes has a small role as a pharmacist's mate on a submarine. Having a much larger part would be Alan Hale, Jr. as the amorous ensign whose love life is interrupted by Garner's mission.

In fact the whole crew of Captain Edmond O'Brien's submarine gets their leave shortened for Garner. He's been specially vetted for this assignment having as qualifications frogman training and speaking fluent Japanese.

Garner's to be landed on an out of the way Japanese held island, he's to swim ashore while the submarine waits for him for a specific time. He's to photograph the Japanese naval code book and sneak out of there without them knowing it.

This one absolutely has me reeling. Garner because he would kind of stand out among all those Oriental faces no matter how fluent his Japanese was. Wouldn't you think the navy would get a Nisei type for this mission? And if not that, a Chinese person might do nicely.

Because Garner's white, he has to spend a considerable amount of time in hiding in the jungle and do his mission at night.

In point of fact the USA had broken the Japanese code. But that was done in Washington and Pearl Harbor by some hardworking cryptologists, not Garner doing a spying job.

This was the kind of stuff that the public was fed in 1943, but by 1959 it simply wasn't believed. I sure couldn't believe it in 2008.

O'Brien is the sub commander, who loses the trust of his crew, Garner the naval officer assigned a commando mission-but the real story here is the vintage cast-Richard Bakalyan and Warren Oates are joined by TV's familiar faces: Edd (Kooky) Byrnes, Henry (Otto Schmidlapp from "Life of Riley") Kulka, and Alan (the Skipper from "Gilligan's Island") Hale Jr. The fine performances are punctuated by adequate action scenes that result in a very watchable picture.