Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

ma-cortes This exciting film contains cold war heroics , non stop excitement , and full of tension and intrigue . Pure entertainment from Fuller , it is set during the Cold War , a privately-financed scientist Prof. Montel (Victor Francen , though Charles Boyer was originally cast for this role) , his assistant (Bella Darvi) and colleagues hire an ex-Navy officer (Richard Widmark) to conduct an Alaskan submarine (Sub used was WW2 ex Japanese sub) expedition (including familiar faces , as sailors appear the followings : Cameron Mitchell , David Wayne and Gene Evans who helped Bella Darvi with her dialogue) in order to prevent a Red Chinese anti-American battle , as well as a deviously plotted plan that could trigger WW3 . As they fit a Japanese submarine to lead them to Arctic Circle . Along the way , they are pursued by a Chinese submarine , stalking each other , and intent on ramming the other .The intriguing premise gets to satisfy completely , as it has breathtaking moments , including an explosive climax and as when two submarines stalk each other through the depths . It mixes a twisted tale with intrigue and schoolboy science-fiction about a scheme that may lead to World War III . This sometimes little objective film lacks a sense of definitive character undermining its important message . This picture is more a submarine movie than a Warlike or Cold war film . The scene from the attack on the first island was taken from the movie ¨Crash Dive¨ (1943) , particularly the ammo exploding in the depot and the burning fuel cascading over the short cliff into the sea . Nice acting by Richard Widmark as an ex-Navy officer assigned to a dangerous mission : to find a secret Chinese atomic island base . Victor Francen plays well the obstinate scientific who designs the risked operation to prevent a Communist plot . And the gorgeous Bella Darvi , this marked the feature film debut of Darryl F. Zanuck's muse Bella Darvi, whose stage surname was a combination of the first names of Zanuck and his wife Virginia . Darvi became a 50s symbol for one of the many movie "Cinderellas" playing ¨Sinuhe the Egyptian¨ , ¨The racers¨ and whose bright and beautiful Hollywood fairy tale would come crashing down, ending in bitterness and tragedy . Bella finally committed suicide in 1971 after turning on the gas stove in her apartment, she was only 42. The movie displays a colorful cinematography in CinemaScope by Joseph MacDonald . This was Twentieth Century-Fox's fifth CinemaScope production . Thrilling and stirring musical score by the prolific Alfred Newman . In this picture Samuel Fuller proved his talent of vision and intelligence . Fuller being especially known as filmmaker of such exploitation films as ¨Shock corridor¨ and ¨The naked kiss¨ . Fuller made various Western as ¨I shot Jesse James(49)¨, ¨The baron of Arizona (50)¨, ¨Run of the arrow¨ (56) , ¨Forty guns(58)¨, and ¨The meanest men in the West (76)¨ , but his most fluid and strongest work lies in his war films as ¨Steel helmet(51)¨ , ¨Fixed bayonets(52)¨, ¨Hell and high water (55)¨, ¨China gate (57)¨ , ¨Merrill's Marauders (62)¨ and ¨The Big Red One (80)¨. Being his best films : ¨Pick up on South Street¨(53) , ¨Underworld Usa¨(60) and ¨White Dog¨(82) . Rating : Better than average . Worthwhile watching .

derekcreedon When James Bond reached the big screen in the early Sixties Ian Fleming's baddies - the Russians - were diplomatically changed into Third Force characters playing off the super-powers against each other usually to rack up loot or feed a madman's ego. In the bristling up-and-atom Fifties it was a different tale. With McCarthyism breathing down its neck Hollywood had a vested interest in slagging off the Reds without fear or favour giving rise to - among others - two fascinating collaborations between Sam Fuller and Richard Widmark. Fuller claimed though to eschew ideology in favour of tough tabloid human-interest while Widmark, a noted liberal but not a 'joiner', ducked and dived in the flow of things to keep his career afloat. PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET was a dark urban thriller in which a pickpocket inadvertently pinches top-secret microfilm. He's not a patriot and his subsequent actions are mercenary but the murder of a friend finally triggers personal revenge. Interestingly the Commie spy's also a mercenary, being easier to combat dramatically, I suppose, than a set of alien ideas.When HIGH WATER took to the waves CinemaScope was in, spreading its wings on a mushroom-cloud explosion near the Arctic circle, an earnest voice-over suggesting It's All True. A busy reel of 'Scope travelogue zaps us around the world (there's a momentary clip from THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN with Maggie McNamara at the edge of frame) as the media buzzes with the sudden disappearance of Professor Montel, top man in his nuclear field - has he 'gone over' ? "Like something out of Inner Sanctum" ex-Cmdr Adam Jones observes on being summoned to a secret meeting in the dead of night (a nice in-joke: Widmark acted in countless radio shows before movie-fame). Get that name, a potent mix of the First Man and the First American Sea-Dog but like the pickpocket this Jones is no flag-waver. He's hired for cash by a civilian consortium of scientists headed by Montel (he didn't defect) to investigate suspicious activity around said Arctic - the film's crafty way of turning the Cold War hot, potentially, without appearing to do so. No governments are officially represented on this "peaceful expedition" and the only Americans involved are the mercenary Jones and his "key men" from World War II. Even the submarine they're using is an old Japanese "sewer-pipe". Jones does insist, against objections, on arming the vessel - not as a political gesture, you understand, but just to cover everyone's butt. So off we go into a delirious farrago of unabashed clichés - the one girl on the sub, the skipper's guilty past (he lost a ship through disobeying orders), the Chinese equivalent of "the good German" etc. knowingly marshalled by Fuller to lively effect mainly within the boat (just as well as the surface-scenes against lurid backcloths are on a par with the worst moments in BEN-HUR).Montel's on board as expedition-leader along with his fetching assistant Denise who's rejected at first as a 'jonah' by the superstitious matelots but soon wins them round with a gracious plea for tolerance - the brimming eyes probably did the trick. "That's no female - that's a scientist !" Denise can speak umpteen languages but doesn't know what a 'pass' is. She soon finds out, the sailor-boys lining up to make her acquaintance, the jovial Ski with his fake tattoos and a drunken crewman who gets physical till the skipper knocks him cold. "A last-minute replacement," he tells her. Not one of his key men, obviously. Despite occasional frictions with both eggheads Jones does a nifty job of seducing Denise in a quite sexy bunkside dalliance bathed in infra-red during a cat-and-mouse, no-sounds encounter with a Red sub. Chin Lee the cook (who appears out of nowhere via Central Casting) has no English but entertains the crew with comic parodies of popular songs in fluent pidgin-American. When a Red Chinese officer is captured during a contretemps on their island-objective Chin is enlisted to pose as another prisoner to find out what they're up to. He insists on being beaten up by the skipper in person beforehand to make it more convincing - "It won't hurt if you do it" - something rather dark going on here. He secures the vital information but is killed by the Red. They intend dropping a bomb on Korea and Manchuria from a plane with American markings - as they would, of course. (The ultimate paranoid nightmare). Jones' patriotism surfaces - "They're gonna lay the biggest egg in history and we're taking the rap for it. I don't like that !" Quite so. He thereupon orders up every gun the old bucket can muster to knock the Gooks out of the sky. Montel, the man of reason, protests "this insanity" but knows the movie's got him beat and sacrifices himself for the greater commonsense. "Each man has his own reason for living and his own price for dying." (The script got rather fond of this line and tended to repeat it). Mission completed, the world is saved (for the moment) but not without an extra twist of pathos I won't reveal even at this great distance because it's rather good.By the Sixties the climate had changed sufficiently to allow the nuclear-disaster cycle where someone presses the button - always by accident or delusion and always from our side - and the world comes apart. Widmark returned to Arctic waters as producer and star of THE BEDFORD INCIDENT in which a hawkish destroyer-captain, like a modern Ahab, obsessively stalks and hustles a trapped Russian sub to the point of no return. No girls here, no jokes, no colour and 'Scope. And this time round absolutely no-one gets to "head for home."

ed_two_o_nine This is an average post World War II movie that is by no means bad but also a very long way from being great. The film is the story of a group of international privately funded scientist who are on a humanitarian mission to discover if some unnamed communists are conducting nuclear tests in a remote area of the Artic. As a means to their end the scientists recruit Richard Widmark as Captain Jones to captain a sub-marine manned by mercenaries and a two scientists the lead scientist Professor Montell and his glamorous assistant Denise Gerrard (played by the doomed Bella Darvi). Things plod along nicely and for the time the are some tense submarine duel scenes once they engage the enemy. Denise Gerrard and Proffesor Montaell clash with Captain Jones as they have to enter his world though the female character really needed fleshing out. We have some battle as the tension mounts and the enemy base is located leading up to the final battle which works quite well. A few twists along the way add to the mix and some nice morals add to the ending. Worth a go.

j_chy Yeah, it telegraphs all of the big "reveals", it has some overly dramatic acting, the major plot points are easy to see coming, the "red shirts" are obvious, the scenes are kinda cheesy, the characters are all one-dimensional, the plot motivators are simple ("he needs fresh air" or "we didn't have time to test the torpedo tubes") but dang I loved it! It was almost like a bond movie without the gadgets, the unbelievable stunts, or the bad double entendres. It is an instant classic in my book; it is just on the edge of something that you can take seriously. If you go in not expecting much and you realize that this was made many years ago before all of the methods used in it became trite due to overuse, then you will walk away with a smile. There are many worse submarine movies, some of which consist of "I'm in charge!"..."No I'm in charge", while this one has some strategy, some minor humor, some action, and some larger-than-life threats, and some explosions.. all in all worth the rental.