Torpedo Run (1958)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Copyright 1958 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. New York opening at the Capitol: 24 October 1958. U.S. release: October 1958. U.K. release: 11 January 1959. Australian release: 15 January 1959. 98 minutes. Censored in the U.K. to 95 minutes in order to gain a "U" certificate. SYNOPSIS: Barney Doyle, sub commander of the U.S.S. Grayfish, has two major concerns: one, he worries over the fate of his wife and child, taken prisoner by the Japanese when Manila fell; and two, he wonders if he'll ever get a crack at the Japanese carrier, Shinaru, flagship of the Pearl Harbor attack. Both questions are answered at the same time. On the day he gets the Shinaru in his periscope sights, he learns from COMSUBPAC that his family are aboard a transport shielding the carrier. Despite the objections of his executive officer, Archer Sloan, Barney feels duty-bound to fire. The Japanese scheme works — the Shinaru escapes into Tokyo Bay. VIEWERS' GUIDE: Adults.COMMENT: Few people set out to make a bad movie. A cheap movie, yes, but one that purposely fails to entertain its intended audience, that's rare. Yet sometimes you wonder what audience producers could have been thinking of when they made a particular picture. "Torpedo Run" is a case in point. An audience composed entirely of rabid Glenn Ford and/or Ernest Borgnine fans is the only one I can nominate that would enjoy "Torpedo Run". Lots and lots of close-ups of Glenn and Ernie, acting out their preposterous lines in a perfectly serious manner, not the slightest traces of mockery or deprecation in their voices. (The other players are a solidly stolid bunch too, but their roles are strictly support, so they don't count for much).Maybe the movie is popular with fans of director Joe Pevney? I'm kidding. Joe doesn't have any fans. Doesn't deserve any either. A strictly pedestrian, totally unimaginative hack. An interesting actor, but a totally lousy director. Action fans, then? What action? Well, yes, if you like lots of blown-up, ill-matching stock footage and obvious models. CinemaScope fans? Well 'Scope is hardly the medium for claustrophobic submarine interiors — and that's where maybe 90 of the movie's 98 minutes is set. Movie fans? "Torpedo Run" is not a movie. It's radio soap opera, with one-dimensional characters, phony conflicts, and absolutely zilch in visual appeal.

lame brained slow stupid movie. torpedo run, or sorry honey, i torpedoed the kid. does anyone out there seriously believe that a man might make a choice like that & then live with it so easily? it would have been far more interesting to see him mistakenly sink the captives, learn about it afterwards, & THEN start his revenge path. & i don't know about reviewers who claim submarine experience but so blithely heading into a mine field & so easily escaping from it? nah? pathetic American 50s propaganda, & bad propaganda at that. if you want to see a proper submarine movie, burt lancaster & clark gable in run silent run deep or curt jurgens & robert mitchum in the enemy below are far superior fare.

Well, I'm a fan of submarine movies. And like the previous poster, I can number many more entertaining efforts.Glenn Ford plays the angst-ridden commander, whilst Ernie Borgnine doubles as his excessively friendly and loyal exec. Their's is a polarity that has become something of a genre cliché. Still, they work well together. The rest of the players also do an adequate job.For me, the star of the show is the huge submarine of the American long-range Pacific fleet - the 'Gato' class. These were whoppers. Even so, the interior still looks a little too roomy to be believable, as most of these early sub movies do. They were also the most successful submarines of WW2 and I'm surprised we don't see them featured more often.Some tactical issues seem extremely hokey. The initial attack on the Japanese aircraft carrier would surely have been initiated from several miles away allowing the sub to position itself on whichever side of the carrier that was not protected by the freighter. As things are, by taking such a reckless action, knowing that the freighter contained some 1400 POW's and civilians, the sub commander was surely liable to a war-crime charge. Add to that his collision with a barrage despite being aware of its proximity, and remaining at periscope depth at low speed when a destroyer was barely a thousand yards away, and you begin to wonder how the skipper ever got his command. He certainly wasn't fit. The speed of the carrier is also quoted as 21knots. So how come the common-or-garden freighter was managing to keep up with it? That vessel would barely have managed half the speed.The Japanese ships are all too clearly models. Not as goofy as those of Preminger's 'In Harm's Way', but it is a post-war movie (1958) more could surely have been done. Worth a watch, but by no means collectible. Britain's 1943 vintage 'We Dive At Dawn' has a great deal more going for it, despite being 15 years older and made on a wartime budget.

Production rivals around that time would have to include 'Run Silent, Run Deep' and 'Submarine Seahawk', both of which took place in the Pacific war theatre. Torpedo Run measures up well next to them. Most of it seemed pretty authentic except for the glaring omission of anti-aircraft guns on the boat's conning tower structure. Obviously these had been removed previously for security reasons. And what was Englishman, Robert Hardy, doing there as a Royal Navy Lieutenant? I suspect his only raison d'etre, based on his experiences in the European theatre, was to offer the captain a way out of the minefield by firing a torpedo into the mines, thereby leaving the lurking Japanese anti-submarine vessels with the thought that his boat had hit one of them.