Action in the North Atlantic (1943)

Truly Dreadful Film

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

A great flag waver, especially at the end, when Humphry Bogart, as Lt. Rossi, gives an appropriate speech. He had taken over as the de facto commander of the lightly armed Liberty ship Seawitch after Major Jarvis((Raymond Massey) had been incapacitated by enemy fire. Well into the film, after having been blown out of the water by a U boat, the officers were given the new ship to try again. They joined a convoy of merchant ships out of Halifax, each given a particular position to be maintained throughout the transit, if possible. The convoy was taking the northern route across the Atlantic, to the Russian port of Murmansk, on the Barents Sea: an indentation of the Arctic Ocean. They were bringing supplies badly needed for the war effort. Of course, during the transit, the convoy was attacked by a wolf pack, and a number of ships, as well as U boats, sunk. You feel the constant fear of being blown up by a U boat, or occasionally a German light bomber. The Seawitch is separated from the convey during the main attack of the wolfpack, and battles one particular sub, along with a couple of light bombers. Rossi has a very risky trick up his sleeve to hopefully induce the U boat to surface within firing range. Previously, he had a trick to make the U boat think the ship had vanished, at night.

Episodic, boring and about a half hour too long, this is a pure WWII propaganda film for the Merchant Marine. Watching this on DVR, I found myself fast forwarding thru much of the seemingly endless propaganda speeches that litter this picture. The performances are, at best, adequate and at worst, dreadful. Warner Brothers usual array of character actors provide little, if any, "action" to this film. Alan Hale, whom I normally find enjoyable, chews up scenery at every turn. Raymond Massey is, well, Raymond Massey. Bogie does his best with what he was given but even he can't save this turkey. Stereotypes and clichés run rampant throughout the film. Some pretty good battle scenes don't save this flick from being a two hour exercise in tedium. All-in-all, this film is best for Bogie fans and Merchant seamen.

This film was so meaningful to me. My grandmother's first cousin, Alexander Miller MacKinnon 19, drowned during a March 1942 attack while serving in the Merchant Marine.He was aboard the "Colabee," having just left Cuba with a load of sugar for Baltimore. 10 miles out they were hit by the German submarine U-126. 23 dead, 14 survivors. Ironically the U-126 was itself destroyed the following year with no survivors.As a child in 1940s Buffalo all our windows were carefully covered with black-out shades each evening. I heard the adults whispering that this was in case the Germans came up the St. Lawrence to the Great Lakes but we did not really know U-Boats were operating so close to our shores.A year earlier Alex had been assigned to the SS Santa Elisa, hauling sugar cane from Chile to New York, arriving Christmas Eve 1941. But on the return trip to Chile in January 1942 the Santa Elisa was attacked, just as she left NYC carrying crates of safety matches and barrels of highly explosive carbide crystals. She was then towed back to the Brooklyn Yard for repairs. Which is why Alex was aboard the Colabee.After being refitted the Santa Elisa set out to carry gasoline from England to Malta as part of Churchill's 62 vessel Operation Pedestal. That August 1942 she was attacked a second time and torpedoed by Italian motorboats, the gasoline caught fire and she went up in flames off of Tunisia. (One account says no survivors; official MM record states no deaths.)Many parts of the movie show what our Merchant Marine was really going through. Yet it wasn't until 1988 that President Reagan signed the bill conferring Veteran status on all mariners who served in WWII, guaranteeing their benefits.

This comparatively little-known film should have done for the Merchant Sailors of WWII what "The Cruel Sea" did for the image of the Royal Navy. The men who sailed the convoy ships were treated appallingly by the owners of the vessels they crewed, who indeed where quick to institute "retroactive stoppage of pay" clauses upon receiving word of a ship's being lost. They also were subject to verbal --even physical-- abuse by their own countrymen, who routinely mistook them for "Service Shirkers". "Action" is one of the few films that gives them their due.This film is remarkable on many counts. Not only is the acting rock solid, and the story in itself a fine "sea saga", but the director has managed to avoid many potential pitfalls thrown into in his path by the War (Propaganda?) Department. The obligatory leave-taking scenes are touching, but not maudlin; the even more obligatory "speech-making" is impassioned, but never embarrassingly so. And the Enemy is portrayed as a thoroughly competent if ruthless professional, as dedicated to his own trade as the convoy Sailors are to theirs. (I for one did not find the lack of English "subtitles" a problem --I could pretty well figure out what the U-Boat skipper and his crew were up to.) To repeat my opening comments,-- this film, though not as well-circulated as "The Cruel Sea", certainly should rank as its equal.