Home :: DVD :: Military & War  

Action & Combat
Anti-War Films
Civil War
Comedy
Documentary
Drama
International
Vietnam War
War Epics
World War I
World War II
Run Silent, Run Deep

Run Silent, Run Deep

List Price: $14.95
Your Price: $13.46
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 >>

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: One of the best "silent service" films
Review: This has always been one of my very favorite WW2 films. It is very authentic in it's depiction of the silent service. Gable is at his very best, once you hear him shout "Lookouts below, clear the bridge, dive! dive!", nobody else will ever be able to say those words with the same conviction and intensity as Gable!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: run silent run dee[
Review: This is one of the best submarine movies ever made

I DO not have a D V D player. Only V H S

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The greatest submarine war film
Review: This is the quintessential submarine movie, not to mention one of the great war movies of all time. It by far outclasses the other submarine movies like Torpedo Alley, Torpedo Run, and The Enemy Below (although with Kurt Jurgens and Robert Mitchum the latter is actually pretty good). And although still not in Run Silent, Run Deep's league, the more recent Das Boot is excellent too.

Gable and Lancaster are great as captain and commander and the supporting efforts from Jack Ward and Don Rickles also deserve mention. Don looks like he's only 25 here (although he's probably more like 30) and he still has no hair! (That's okay, Don, we still luv ya.) The movie builds the tension up to an almost unbearable climax as Gable proceeds to train his crew to perform the risky bow shot maneuver to take out the Akekazi destroyer, despite the scepticism of both Lancaster and the crew. The tension is made all the more palpable when their first attempt at destroying the Akekazi fails and the Akekazi drops depth charge after depth charge on Gable's ship. But Gable manages to just barely slip away. Then finally, in a suspenseful climactic scene, Gable successfully torpedoes the deadly sub-hunter with the infamous bow shot.

They don't make 'em like this anymore. Big Steve says go rent it and don't Bogart the popcorn.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Before U-571 and Das Boot
Review: Though based on the famed novel by Captain Ed Latimer Beach, the film "Run Silent Run Deep" by Robert Wise goes its own way, compressing and streamlining what had been an extended plot in the novel. Here, Clark Gable plays Ed Richardson, a grizzled sub commander whose previous command was destroyed in the target rich but danger fraught waters of the Bungo straits of Japan. Relegated to a desk, where with the coaching of a trusty and crusty yeoman (Jack Warner) he practices against wooden destroyers on paper desktop oceans. Hungry for command, he takes over a boat between commanders but actually all but promised to the ambitious Jim Bledsoe (Burt Lancaster), a younger officer but more familiar to the crew of the sub. Though warned against returning to the seemingly cursed Bungo straits, and not yet established as the commander for the crew, Richardson wins them over to his side with a series of increasingly aggressive moves, including bows-on shots at Japanese destroyers - a sort of submarine version of "chicken" but with ships and torpedoes instead of cars and trucks. Ultimately making his way to the dreaded straits, Richardson finds a strange sort of redemption, even if it's one he can't live to enjoy.

RSRD is taut, without the feel-good bonhommie of the novel. The pacing seems muted, as if everybody was walking on eggshells - but that makes sense in an age when loose-lips were thought to sink ships, and the sub service itslef was known as the silent service. Not entirely realistic (the sub's interior seems as smooth while riding on the waves as when riding below them), it's consistently gripping. Without having to satisfy the propaganda needs of wartime sub dramas, Director Robert Wise crafts heroes who aren't above the sort of introspection we only expect of post-Vietnam era soldiers. "Am I a fool, too?" Gable asks Jack Warden while the captain is supposed to be calling the yeoman on the carpet. Not as action packed as latter sub movies like "Das Boot" and "U-571", RSRD stays true to its target from beginning to end.

On a side point, Wise later directed the first Star Trek movie. The second Trek film, though not directed at Wise, contains an extended battle sequence obviously inspired by the climactic duel of wits between Richardson and the crew of a Japanese submarine lurking nearby and groping in the dark for survival.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Run Silent, Run Deep
Review: With a straight-ahead, no-nonsense approach by Robert Wise, strong performances by Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster, and a satisfying number of battle sequences, RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP is a very good, if not great, war movie.
Lancaster plays the newly appointed captain of the submarine, Gable plays a desk bound officer who'd had his ship shot out from under him a year earlier and wrangles a command on Lancaster's sub.
Any movie starring Lancaster and Gable (which gratefully acknowledges the cooperation of the United States Navy) is going to take a potentially explosive chain-of-command conflict less seriously than will its audience. Something has to keep us glued to our seats between the "Dive! Dive!" and "Fire torpedo two" scenes. Where would we be without a grumbling crew - Is the new captain a hero? What's up with all these diving drills? - and a covey of junior officers muttering mutiny?
Without its plot contrivances there'd be a whole lot of placid cooperation where a movie's supposed to be. Besides, Lancaster needs a chance to prove (or disprove) that loyalty and devotion to duty beats a stronger tattoo in a seaman's heart than does the rank call of personal ambition (the assistance of the US Navy in leading us to this insight is gratefully acknowledged.)
Considering this movie's reputation, and the resume of its major contributions, I was a little surprised that the plot was so predictable and the ending so abrupt and seemingly tacked on. The scale-models subs and ships seen in battle scenes are acceptable, quite good for the time, actually, even though they probably won't convince many modern viewers.
Although flawed and dated, RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP remains a very good war movie, and is quite enjoyable.


Rating: 5 stars
Summary: True story
Review: Yes this really is a true story. I know because my Father : Robert V. Phillips CQM (COB) was on this patrol. It really did happen. Except for the personal drama between officers. The real Commander Was Commander McGregor. He was one of the top Sumbarine Commanders in the Navy. The ship that was sunk was the Unryn. She was a brand new Japanese aircraft carrier on her way to Midway, fully loaded. The U.S. Submarine Redfish. The only Submarine to sink a aircraft carrier by herself through WW2. The Redfish received a Presidential citation for her bravery. And Commander Mc Gregor received the Silver Star. What make this movie really authentic was the ORIGINAL USS Redfish was also used in the MOVIE. No Hollywood models. This is true USS Redfish ! For More Go to USS REDFISH web site. Read Story of ship and patrols. See Citation ! See Movie !!


<< 1 2 3 4 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates