Gray Lady Down

I remember seeing this movie in the theater when it came out and the review in Time magazine. OK I remember one part of what was a positive review. It said that the movie avoids the bane of the disaster genre, the subplot. The best sentence in the review that I think describes the movie perfectly is," It is a job-oriented movie about job-oriented men." I can't think of a better way to describe it. The actors give there best professional naval officer performances (well maybe not Carradine...good performance...not sure about the naval officer part) and the movie sticks its subject, the rescue. An entertaining movie that delivers a straightforward story and there is nothing wrong with that.

"Gray Lady Down", which bears very little resemblance to the novel it was based on, is a nice, entertaining action thriller that holds up well today in contrast to today's action films because it's cloaked with a realism and plausibility that today's filmmakers seem determined to avoid like the plague.

Gray Lady Down is directed by David Greene and collectively adapted to screenplay by James Whittaker, Howard Sackler and Frank P. Rosenberg from the novel Event 1000 written by David Lavallee. It stars Charlton Heston, David Carradine, Stacy Keach, Ned Beatty, Stephen McHattie and Ronny Cox. Music is by Jerry Fielding and cinematography by Stevan Larner.

Hanging onto the coat tails of the Disaster Movie boom of the 70s, Gray Lady Down is pretty much routine. Plot basically finds a nuclear submarine struck by a boat and sunk to the depths of the treacherous ocean floor. The crew, Captained by a bearded and gruff Heston, are naturally also teetering on the edge of doom unless the Navy can pull off a miracle salvage operation and save the day. Enter Carradine and Beatty in a new Thunderbird like device that although untried in reality, may just be up for the job?

Thus from this plot onwards is a role call of robotic characterisations and adherence to the genre's formula. Men in the sub either sweat and be stoic, or crack and be sacrificed, while up above the waves the hierarchy think they know best while Carradine's unconventional Captain Gates knows otherwise. It's all very muscular, even if some of the dialogue came out of a cheese sandwich, and undeniably the effects work is decent and the suspense is pumped up for maximum impact. Yet if you have seen any other Disaster Movie from the 70s you are likely to be jaded with this "Join The Navy" advertisement. 6/10

This is a great movie for military enthusiasts and disaster buffs both. If you're looking for that, this is a classic.

Don't pay attention to reviews about military-based films by anyone who derides the movie as a "waterlogged Naval documentary," which contains two errors in one statement. First, there is no need to capitalize "naval," and second, what kind of snobby theater twit attacks a movie for being too "Naval" when the subject is about...a U.S. NAVY SUBMARINE? Next he'll attack Ghostbusters for being a shill for paranormal investigators.

Stupid reviewers aside, this is a good movie.

Gray Lady Down is one of the better Seventies disaster films and it's also one of the better films that Charlton Heston did in the later part of his career starting in the Seventies. Heston like so many other of the stars of the studio era was finding fewer and fewer decent film properties to do. This was one of his better choices.

Heston plays the skipper of a nuclear powered submarine which goes down in a collision. Things get further complicated when the 'gray lady' is buried partially in an undersea mudslide, blocking the escape hatch.

The Naval Rescue service is on the job however, but this will prove a difficult task.

The film is divided evenly between Heston and his crew as Heston tries to keep morale up that the survivors will be rescued and on the surface rescue vessel where a conflict between two captains hampers the rescue effort. Stacy Keach is the captain of the rescue vessel and his conflict is with Keith Carradine also of captain's rank who's developed a special undersea two man vessel that can scoop the dirt off the gray lady.

Special mention should go to Ronny Cox who is Heston's number two and also not really getting along with him, but who steps up to the plate in a most heroic fashion.

In 1978 when Gray Lady Down came out there were still memories of the submarine U.S.S. Thresher which went down in 1963 with all hands lost in one of the U.S. Navy's worst disasters at sea. A lot of what you see in this film was developed because of that tragedy.

Gray Lady Down is a no nonsense sea rescue film with the impossible situations that characterized a lot of the films of this type kept out of the story. It's one of the best and yet most unsung of the disaster films of the decade. Should be seen more often. Charlton Heston and the rest of the cast do a fine job on this film.