Torpedo Run

Torpedo Run is a 1958 American war film directed by Joseph Pevney and starring Glenn Ford as a World War II submarine commander in the Pacific who is obsessed with sinking a particular Japanese aircraft carrier. The film's working title was Hell Below.[2] It was filmed in CinemaScope and Metrocolor.

Torpedo Run
Directed byJoseph Pevney
Produced byEdmund Grainger
Written by
Screenplay byRichard Sale
Starring
CinematographyGeorge J. Folsey
Edited byGene Ruggiero
Distributed byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
  • October 24, 1958 (1958-10-24)
Running time
98 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1.5 million[1]
Box office$2.6 million[1]

A. Arnold Gillespie and Harold Humbrock were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.[3]

Plot

In October 1942, ten months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, ComSubPac directs the American submarine Greyfish, under Lieutenant Commander Barney Doyle (Glenn Ford), to the convoy containing the Shinaru, one of the Japanese aircraft carriers that led the attack. Doyle also receives word that the target's escort includes a transport ship, Yoshida Maru, carrying all the American prisoners from the camp in the Philippines where his wife and child were being held. (Flashbacks show that Jane refused to leave Manila.)

Doyle's second in command, Lieutenant Archer Sloan (Ernest Borgnine) first tries to talk his friend into letting him handle the torpedo run, sparing Doyle from being directly responsible for his family's death. In the end, the transport is so close to the carrier that Sloan begs Doyle to abort the attack. Doyle proceeds, hoping to time the shots to miss the Yoshida Maru and hit their target. Carefully counting the seconds, they realize that one of their torpedoes has hit the transport. Hoping to lure the sub to the surface, the Japanese make no attempt to rescue the survivors. Through the periscope, Doyle can see women and children grasping for pieces of floating wreckage. He is forced to leave the prisoners to die.

Doyle follows the Shinaru into Tokyo Bay itself and tries again to sink his nemesis, but he fails. After a relentless bombardment of depth-charges from a Japanese destroyer, he escapes by making it look as if the sub has been destroyed by a mine. The Greyfish heads for Pearl Harbor, and Doyle goes to his cabin and sleeps, fitfully, for three days. At Pearl, Sloan meets with Admiral Setton (Philip Ober), who tells him he has been promoted to Lieutenant Commander; a sub of his own is waiting. Sloan asks about Doyle’s future, and when the Admiral asks what happened after Tokyo Bay, Sloan tells the truth. The Admiral accepts Sloan's assessment that Doyle is fit and agrees to give him “one more trip” to get the Shinaru. The Admiral has only “a long-shot hunch” about where the Shinaru will be, and when the Greyfish and another sub, the Bluefin, are assigned to a quiet, out-of-the-way patrol area off the Alaskan coast, Doyle (now a Commander) thinks he has been betrayed by both the Admiral and Sloan.

Then word comes that the Shinaru is heading for Kiska Harbor (occupied by Japan from June 1942 to July 1943). Nearing the harbor, Sloan recommends diving the boat; Doyle rejects the idea. A broad band of sonar blips appears, and Sloan realizes that it may be the log-and-chain boom reported by intelligence. The Bluefin dives, but Doyle delays for another confirmation, and when the Greyfish dives, it is too late. The conning tower is dragged under the log boom. Both periscopes are disabled and the radar antenna is carried away. Doyle's left arm is broken, but he refuses morphine. “It wouldn't help my shooting”. He plans to make a sound attack, a long shot with a one in eight chance of success. When it is time to push the buttons, he tells Sloan to do it. After the six torpedoes are away, the Shinaru's escort sends the sub to the bottom, using depth-charges. The Bluefin sinks the destroyer, and we see inside that sub for the first time when they move into position to rescue the crew of the Greyfish. The men use Momsen lungs to reach the surface and are taken aboard the Bluefin, their presence masked by the dense fog and the sound of sirens from the harbor. Doyle asks for confirmation that they hit the Shinaru. The Bluefish's Captain looks through the periscope, shares the view briefly with Doyle and Sloan, and then, over the intercom, describes the Shinaru's sinking for Doyle's crew. The Bluefish heads for home to the sound of “Anchors Aweigh”.

Cast

Reception

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times was unimpressed, writing, "Stereotypes of pig-boat fighting that were stale in Destination Tokyo are played and replayed in this picture as if they were freshly inspired. ... it is also played in a highly hackneyed fashion and often faked with preposterous miniatures."[4]

According to MGM records, the film made $1,145,000 in the U.S. and Canada and $1,435,000 elsewhere, resulting in a loss of $195,000.[1]

Home media

The film has been released on VHS and DVD, the latter in Warner's Archive Collection.

See also

References
  1. The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
  2. "AFI|Catalog Torpedo Run". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved 2020-03-24.
  3. "The 31st Academy Awards (1959) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved August 16, 2014.
  4. Bosley Crowther (October 25, 1958). "Torpedo Run (1958) / Hollywood's Undersea War; Torpedo Run' Opens at the Capitol Borgnine and Ford in Submarine Story". The New York Times.
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