NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

deschreiber The over-excited reviews here on IMDb surprise me, as I found this movie only barely worth watching. Mostly I enjoyed the real-life sequences of vintage ships steaming, exploding, and sinking. But the love story, which completely dominates everything else, is ordinary pot-boiler stuff, about a girl torn between two men, deciding who "needs" her more. Finally, though, one of the guys sacrifices himself in order to be a hero (sigh, fade to black). The love story really tanks, though, whenever Madge Evans is forced to try to sound real and impassioned with one of her "I love you truly, truly" speeches. The comic relief by Jimmy Durante might have been very welcome for 1930s audiences, but his eyeball-popping, head-shaking, and and "Hachaaa!"s look forced and pathetic today. His scene with the boxing kangaroo is a stupid interruption. (I couldn't help thinking how dangerous it would be if the roo made one of his little kicks really count for something.)Now about the writing--did somebody here mention a "literate" script? Please. Its literacy may be measured with examples like these:"Are you all right?" Wiping blood from his nose, "You think this is ketchup, do you?"Trying to fix a leak spewing water into the sub, "Somebody left the bathtub on."All this is not to say The Hell Below is terrible. It's probably a cut above the average war movie of its era (How many war movies were made in the early 30s, anyway?), but if you're looking it up on IMDb to get a sense of whether you should put aside time to watch it, my advice is not to give it a very high priority. Leave it for some late night when you have insomnia. You'll be grateful for it then.

calvinnme I say it's an action film rather than a war film because it has a little bit of everything - battle scenes, love scenes, and even some comedy thrown in here and there. It also does something unusual for an MGM film of the era - it doesn't get hammy and it doesn't come up with a contrived happy ending for all involved.Lt. Thomas Knowlton (Robert Montgomery) and Lt. Brick Walters (Robert Young) are the best of friends and also officers aboard a submarine during WWI. At the beginning of the film they get a new commanding officer - Lt. Cmdr. T.J. Toler (Walter Huston). Toler is a strictly by the book commander and seems to rub Knowlton and Walters the wrong way just a bit, though more from his very formal nature than by any unfairness in his command. Knowlton falls in love with Toler's daughter Joan (Madge Evans). The complicating factor here is that Joan is married - she tells him so upfront. This doesn't seem to bother Knowton too much until he finds out exactly why Joan let her foot slip.Conflict between Toler and Knowlton builds not only because of Knowlton's romance with Toler's married daughter, but because Knowlton is unfortunately an officer who thinks sentiment has a place on board a submarine in wartime. Comic relief is provided by long-time MGM contract comedian Jimmy Durante and Eugene Palette as two enlisted men on board the submarine. Sterling Holloway plays what at first seems like comic relief to the comic relief but ends up the centerpiece of a very nightmarish and unforgettable scene that reminds everyone that war truly is hell.Highly recommended as a good action film and one that plays to the strengths of the entire cast.

schappe1 This was part of a run of old war movies on TCM I caught recently. All of them, (the others were 'Captains of the Clouds' (1942) and 'Pilot #5', (1943)), had the same ending: the protagonist dies heroically on a suicide mission. The movies seemed fixated on the idea that heroes didn't just risk their lives: they sacrificed them. In 'Hell Below', perhaps the first of the great submarine dramas, there is an unnecessary heroic ending in which Robert Montgomery sacrifices his life to complete their mission while leaving the woman he loves to remain with her crippled husband.The story is really about the sort of decisions a commander has to make. Montgomery rebels against his captain, (Walter Huston), who has left a raft with several crewmen, including Montgomery's pal, (and look-alike), Robert Young, (it's the only film they both appeared in and they should have been playing brothers), to die in a hail of German machine gun bullets while the sub dives to avoid being fired upon themselves. Montgomery never forgives Huston. On a later patrol, Montgomery violates orders to maintain silence to start a battle Huston wanted to avoid. Sterling Holloway gets trapped in a section of the ship where poison gas is leaking and Montgomery has to seal him off or expose the rest of the crew to the gas. It's the equivalent of what Huston had to do and he realizes it, even if he doesn't immediately admit it. That's the real dramatic climax of the film, not the comic book suicide mission at the end. The film also features another trend of the times: the borscht belt comic relief provided by a noted comedian, in this case, Jimmy Durante. To the modern viewer this adds nothing to the film. In this case, there's also a glaring mistake in the editing. They apparently felt that the scene where Young and his men get machine gunned to death was a little strong so they sought to leaven it by following it with a clip from an earlier amusement park sequence in which Durante winds up boxing a kangaroo. This is the single most inappropriate and jarring segue in the history of the cinema. I suppose it's not quite right but I really wish someone would put it back where it belongs or delete it all together. One wonders why old Hollywood didn't trust the strength of the stories it was telling to entertain the audience.

Ron Oliver The crew of an American submarine discover it's HELL BELOW while fighting in the Adriatic in 1918.Although nearly forgotten, this excellent war film still delivers solid entertainment, thanks to a literate script, superior performances and highly believable action scenes.Robert Montgomery & Walter Huston play submarine officers under the stress of war who quickly are at odds with each other, with dramatic and tragic results. Since Montgomery is in love with Huston's daughter, Madge Evans in a well-played role, the situation becomes even more complicated, both on shore and beneath the waves. The viewer is torn between the two strong characters, one of whom is governed by his heart and the other by the rules.Robert Young makes an effective appearance as Montgomery's buddy. Sterling Holloway creates a brief, vivid, portrait of a doomed seaman.Eugene Pallette as the torpedo master & Jimmy Durante as the sub's cook make for a very funny comedy team and provide the story with plenty of laughs. Durante's nose comes in for lots of ribbing and his obsession with amateur dentistry leads to some chaotic encounters with British tars.Movie mavens will recognize Babe London as an obese Italian miss; Maude Eburne as the wife of a British admiral & Paul Porcasi as an Italian admiral - all uncredited.MGM has given the film absolutely first-class production values, with the undersea sequences especially well produced. Both the claustrophobic compactness of the ship and the inevitable tension associated with submarine warfare are accurately portrayed. Other moments of unexpected drama (Montgomery & Miss Evans caught on top of a stalled Ferris wheel during an air raid) and hilarity (Durante boxing a kangaroo) are expertly threaded into the fabric of the movie to provide a totally satisfying viewing experience.