Submarine Base

This film takes place on a small island in the Atlantic Ocean near the equator, featuring an exiled American named "Joe Morgan" (Alan Baxter) and his British employee "Spike" (Eric Blore) secretly loading torpedoes onto a German submarine during World War II. Not long afterward, while sailing his fishing boat in the open seas, Eric notices a man clinging to a piece of wreckage from a ship that had been torpedoed two hours earlier. Upon pulling him aboard, Joe quickly recognizes him as a former police officer named "James Taggert" (John Litel), who had once investigated him for murder in New York. Although not particularly fond of him, Joe still arranges for his meals and lodging at the local hotel, but makes it known that he wants nothing to do with him from then on. What Joe doesn't realize, however, is that Taggert suspects he is hiding something and immediately begins to uncover what it is. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this movie was made right after the American involvement in World War II and, as a result, there was a great demand for films of this sort. It isn't very long (about 65 minutes) and, as one might expect, fully supports the war effort. Be that as it may, while I don't consider this to be a bad film necessarily, it clearly wasn't one of the better films made during this time, and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

During World War II, gangster Alan Baxter (as Joe Morgan) fishes officer John Litel (as Jim Taggart) out of the Pacific Ocean, after his ship is torpedoed by Nazis. Mr. Baxter explains he has left the criminal world to become a simple fisherman; and, Mr. Litel reveals he has turned in his badge to join the American war cause. Litel suspects Baxter may have joined the Nazi cause. Fisherman Baxter is also adept at attracting women; Jacqueline Dalva (as Judy) and Fifi D'Orsay (as Maria), for example. "Submarine Base" is a dull, predictable attack on disbelievers in the "Four Freedoms". Eric Blore (as Spike) is mildly amusing, offering to prepare tea and crumpets on Baxter's boat.

* Submarine Base (7/20/43) Albert H. Kelly, Alan Baxter, John Litel, Eric Blore

Merchant mariner John Litel has another ship blown out from under him. He's picked up by Alan Baxter. When they both lived in New York, Baxter was a mobster, and Litel a police detective trying to jail him. When things became too hot, Baxter settled for being a fisherman off the coast of South America. He drops Litel on an out-of-the-way island right on the Equator, where the eccentric locals -- including Eric Blore, Fifi D'Orsay, and Luis Alberni -- keep up a shoddy brand of normality with German spies, ineffective French governors, German U-boats off the coast, and so forth.

Three years earlier, Litel had been playing second leads and authority figures at Warner Brothers, and here he is, slumming at PRC. Whom had he offended so badly? Baxter speaks his lines like he has a head cold. The script is blah, with Litel giving a rah-rah speech at the end, which comes out of nowhere. Another PRC C movie.

"Submarine Base" is a film by the ultra-tiny PRC Studio and in one of the 'macho' roles is Eric Blore--these alone are reasons to suspect it's a bad film! And, this is pretty much the case.

The film begins with an American gangster on an island where he is meeting with Nazi submarines to supply them with torpedoes!! Talk about a silly and impossible to believe scenario. Well, unfortunately it gets even sillier as he and his macho friend (Blore) find a sailor floating in the sea in the middle of the ocean. This guy just happens to be the same cop who had tried to capture the gangster for murder some time back. So, we are expected to believe this sort of coincidence! Talk about suspending disbelief! Well the rest of the film is pretty trivial but by the end (in a VERY jingoistic finale), the two join forces to defeat the forces of international evil! Saying this is contrived is a huge understatement. While I love a good patriotic WWII propaganda film, this one was just dumb.

There are a few real hidden gems that few people see, because there aren't big name stars, particularly in 1940s and 1950s films.

This one is a war time flick about American civilians dealing with German U Boats. The main character, Morgan, is an American hoodlum who is dealing with the Nazis, or is he? We immediately get the feeling that Morgan is not what he seems, but he is in over his head in trying to hoodwink the Nazi Navy, but he doesn't know it. This makes it somewhat credible.

He is at odds with a former cop named Taggart, who serves as the stable character of the film. There are many other interesting characters, and great atmosphere, with superb directing, that makes this a hidden gem.

The shots all follow logical patterns, and we follow the plot very easy. This is a directing triumph. The scenery is engaging, and this is put together extremely well. We are kept interested in the plot, because of the characters. This is how a film should be made, yet many with much larger budgets can't accomplish what this film did. A must see film, and very surprising, because unlike most Hollywood films, the bad guys don't win all the time.