Close Encounters?

A few weeks ago a big WWII-era bomb was reportedly defused in London. The AP notes:

The bomb, which Metropolitan Police said was the largest found in London in three decades, was discovered Monday by construction workers preparing a site for the 2012 Olympic Games.

The bomb had started to tick at one point but engineers dealt with the problem, Saunders said.

This sounds eerily reminiscent of the film Quatermass and the Pit. (Spoiler alert: read no further if you have never seen this movie and think you might want to someday). Also known as Five Million Years to Earth to blokes in the States because the plot involves the discovery of a "bomb" in the London Tube that is actually a space ship that has been buried for, well, you can figure it out. Seems that all the spooky happenings in that part of the city over the years might be related to an alien scheme for planetary conquest.

Anyway, it's just a silly movie from the Sixties. I'm sure it has absolutely no connection whatsoever to this story from The Sun: Cops chase a UFO over Cardiff.

Maybe Ballista should go check on the readiness of the ol' Doomsday shelter.

The Atlantic Theater

Back to the movies. This review will include more than just the submarine films set in WWII because there aren't as many as were set in the Pacific. This time we get some surface action as well.

• Das Boot. (1981). Jurgen Prochnow commands a U-boat on patrol in Wolfgang Petersen's acclaimed story of the conflict between duty and survival and camped spaces. Visually, very striking.
• The Enemy Below. (1957). Robert Mitchum commands a destroyer escort hunting a particularly crafty German sub, skippered by Curt Jurgens. This is a battle of wits as much as firepower. Who will prove the more determined? The way Mitchum and Jurgens portray the respect between two warriors on opposing sides is powerful.
• U-571. (2000). Don't bother.
• Sink the Bismark! (1960). Retelling of the frantic British effort to destroy the Nazi's newest, and most powerful battleship before it can prey on vital supply lines. A nice piece of drama with a solid script, spiced up with some bits of personal tragedy, revenge, and love during wartime. Edward R. Murrow plays himself.
• Pursuit of the Graf Spee (The Battle of the River Plate). (1956). Cinematic recounting of another real battle. Three British cruisers track down the German surface raider, Graf Spee, and engage her off the coast of South America. The Brits are out-gunned but the Germans are out-numbered and out-flanked. A story of determination, cunning, honor, and political intrigue. Unfortunately, this film is hard to find outside of the UK. Ballista recalls that many years ago the local PBS affiliate ran this one during fund-raising sweeps. Now that is some good quality public broadcasting!
  

Note that American submarine operations in the Atlantic during WWII were limited - the Navy need their undersea predators to sink Japanese shipping and defend Hawaii and the West Coast much more than they needed them to patrol for German shipping. The other reality was that by 1942, the Axis sea power in Europe, aside from the U-boats had been pretty well bottled up in France and the Mediterranean. Moreover, subs of the today were not designed to hunt and kill other subs, so American subs in the Atlantic would not have been all that useful against U-boats anyway. All this is a long way of explaining why we don't have many movies about US submarines in this theater.

And yes, there is a rule somewhere that in order to play a German sub captain, an actor must have "Jurgen" somewhere in his name.

Finally, a plug for a blog on everything submarines Ballista discovered whilst preparing this post. Ultraquiet No More.

Silent Service

Ballista got thinking about submarines the other day. Grandfather served on a sub in the Pacific theater during WWII - probably on an S-class boat for at least part the war. Duty sent him from Hawaii to Australia to Palau and back again. When the war ended and his sub was ordered back to Pearl Harbor, the boat was more than a week overdue and the crew was listed as missing for a short time. Grandpa never talked his time in the Navy. When asked a question he would usually reply that he didn't remember. Ballista recalls him as a reserved man, so it is difficult to discern whether he genuinely could not remember or he did not want to talk about a nasty time from his past.

The men of the Silent Service accomplished amazing feats during WWII. Thinking about them tangentially led Ballista to thinking about movies about submarines. No replacement for some of the books written about sub fleet, numerous films made during and after the war make for good entertainment. Ballista here offers a quick review, in no particular order, of those set in the Pacific.

• Run Silent, Run Deep. (1958). Clark Gable must recover from the disastrous sinking of his previous boat to command a new sub. But Burt Lancaster and crew are unsure of their new skipper and his decision to venture into an area that the Fleet brass have deemed off-limits. Does Gable have an ulterior objective and to what length will he go to achieve it? Don Rickles guest stars to insult the Japanese into capitulating.
  
• Up Periscope. (1959). James Garner is a UDT expert (forerunner to a SEAL) and is sent to destroy a Japanese radar station that could undermine an upcoming Allied offensive. Gruff sub skipper Edmond O'Brien must overcome his own demons to hold his crew together and help Garner complete his mission.
  
• Operation Pacific. (1951). John Wayne. In a submarine. Does Ballista really need to say more?
  
• Torpedo Run. (1958). Glenn Ford and Ernest Borgnine must sink Japan's newest aircraft carrier. But reports say the ship is transporting American prisoners as a human shield. Is Glenn Ford's wife one of those prisoners?
  
• Destination Tokyo. (1943). Cary Grant leads his crew into the heart of enemy territory, Tokyo Bay. His mission is to snoop around and report intelligence to the carrier fleet transporting Jimmy Doolittle's bombers for their daring raid. The only hitch is that one of the submariners falls gravely ill and needs surgery, stat! Watch the dashing Grant confront ethical dilemmas and Japanese warships in this thriller made in the middle of the war.
• Operation Petticoat. (1959). Cary Grant returns. This time he must get his damaged sub back to base while avoiding the rapidly advancing Japanese in the days immediately following the Pearl Harbor attack. Along the way he picks up a "resourceful" and womanizing (hehe) Tony Curtis and a half dozen stranded nurses. Buxom nurses. More comedy than action/drama, but still worthy of mention.
  

Stay tuned for a review of films set in the Atlantic.