SPOILERS. This is an above average doomsday movie, starting with the effective model work and special effects. The destroyer Bedford looks real against its background of sea and ice bergs. They couldn't use a real destroyer because the U. S. Navy would not lend its cooperation to a film in which an American skipper is a bloodthirsty cold warrior. The story is compelling and I won't bother outlining it here. If there is a problem with the script it's a minor one. The dialog is occasionally klutzy. A character is described by another as having spoken "laconically," without having actually done so. It's as if someone had stuck the word "laconically" into the script hoping it would somehow fit. And why would a journalist use a word like "commendatory" when he means "commendable." And there is an awkward confrontation between Poitier and Widmark in the latter's cabin. Poitier, the journalist, seems to be trying to draw Widmark into making a fascist speech, and Widmark argues that the press is always putting words in his mouth and "interpreting." It's clumsily done. They say things like, "You're interpreting again!" and "That's YOUR interpretation." Widmark was producer on this and his wife Jean, a writer, was called in to add some uncredited gloss to the script but who knows?
The acting is about what you'd expect from pros. The film was made in England and some of the actors do a reasonably good job of disguising their British accents. Poitier -- I can't remember a film in which he did a bad job, though his range was limited. Widmark is subtly nuts. We can sense pretty much from the beginning what he is about. But he's human too. His condescending affection towards Wally Cox (as a mere seaman who is the best sonarman on the ship!) is nice. And when he has an argument with Poitier and Poitier gets in the last logical word, Widmark assumes a hurt expression before abruptly turning away. (I'm not so sure that's proper in the sort of authoritarian that Widmark represents.) Martin Balsam is his reliable self as a recycled doctor who is routinely humiliated by the captain.
So much technology is involved in the story that it seems at times as if it's science fiction. Some of the procedures shown are a little sloppy. Hospitalmen having a smoke in sick bay? During General Quarters? Men saluting officers indoors? (I had to live with that chicken**** for four years, and in the movies they throw it out the porthole!)
Yet incidents involving confrontations, I understand, do happen. An American and a Soviet submarine went through an underwater collision at the height of the cold war while playing games with one another. And as for violating territorial waters, a Soviet boat found itself trapped in a Norwegian fjord some years ago, if I remember.
Holy mackerel, I'm glad that whole period is behind us, when a few screwballs or screwups here and there could begin a nuclear exchange. I am in hopes that it stays behind us but I'm not certain we have more control over our nature than the skipper had over the antisubmarine device once it was launched.
The acting is about what you'd expect from pros. The film was made in England and some of the actors do a reasonably good job of disguising their British accents. Poitier -- I can't remember a film in which he did a bad job, though his range was limited. Widmark is subtly nuts. We can sense pretty much from the beginning what he is about. But he's human too. His condescending affection towards Wally Cox (as a mere seaman who is the best sonarman on the ship!) is nice. And when he has an argument with Poitier and Poitier gets in the last logical word, Widmark assumes a hurt expression before abruptly turning away. (I'm not so sure that's proper in the sort of authoritarian that Widmark represents.) Martin Balsam is his reliable self as a recycled doctor who is routinely humiliated by the captain.
So much technology is involved in the story that it seems at times as if it's science fiction. Some of the procedures shown are a little sloppy. Hospitalmen having a smoke in sick bay? During General Quarters? Men saluting officers indoors? (I had to live with that chicken**** for four years, and in the movies they throw it out the porthole!)
Yet incidents involving confrontations, I understand, do happen. An American and a Soviet submarine went through an underwater collision at the height of the cold war while playing games with one another. And as for violating territorial waters, a Soviet boat found itself trapped in a Norwegian fjord some years ago, if I remember.
Holy mackerel, I'm glad that whole period is behind us, when a few screwballs or screwups here and there could begin a nuclear exchange. I am in hopes that it stays behind us but I'm not certain we have more control over our nature than the skipper had over the antisubmarine device once it was launched.