Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

ChampDavSlim The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

jtwcosmos "Secure that door!"This is the story of Nautilus, the nuclear submarine that sank with all hands, but some of them got rescued. No submarines were harmed during the making of this movie, even though the script is quite bad and the special effects were done in a bathtub. The cast is great and it is just about the only grace saving this picture.The story and it's translation into script require the viewer to believe that the highly trained officers of the Navy are idiots. Which could be, but I highly doubt it, especially when we're talking about the flagship of the submarine fleet. Then again, stupid accidents happen all the time, and it could be possible that a ship the size of Manhattan would sucker punch a sub, once in a while. After that it gets better, especially towards the end, when the tension is well done.The special effects are terrible, but they seem to improve during the movie. Or I just got used to them, not sure. If you can look past the flimsy models and their less than impressive screen presence, however, they do their job and tell a decent story.The cast is great. Charlton Heston, Stacy Keach, Ronny Cox, David Caradine and Christopher Reeve are excellent.Gray Lady Down. A decent sub movie, with terrible special effects. 5/10.

dennrho Used to watch this one stretched out on the deck on the Mess Decks at #%@$%& feet down and hiding from the Russ..... when it first came out. Not the Russ...., the flick. Pretty good. Recommend it. Almost gave it a 9! Pretty good plot, good set. Almost, almost realistic. But it IS a flick. Don't expect too much realism or too little space. The choice of cast is almost as entertaining as the story itself. Just can't get Charleston to stay ON TOP of the water. Walked through it at Sinai on dry ground. Lays on ocean floor UNDER it on continental shelf. Enough tension to keep one's attention but not so much that it makes a joke of "real life" with "Steely Eyed Killers Of The Deep." Better all around flick than Ice Station Zebra or Red Dawn. And no, the reactor does not glow purple or red! Good plot, good acting, and credible effects makes this one a winner.

innocuous A better-than-average disaster movie, due mostly to the absence of any ridiculous scenes. (There are no overweight older Jewish women who won swimming medals many years ago trying to reach the sub, for example.)On the other hand, Ronnie Cox as the first officer goes to pieces very quickly and you wonder why the Navy ever thought he'd be able to command a sub of his own. Also, you've got to ponder the initial collision. The sub's crew basically just lets a freighter in open water run them down, not even noticing that the freighter is in the area until it's too late to do anything about it. Kind of makes you wonder.Heston is restrained in his role, which works out pretty well. Everybody else does a good job (except for Cox) and the special FX are average for the time.Definitely worth watching.

Libretio GRAY LADY DOWN Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Panavision)Sound format: MonoWhilst heading home on its final voyage, a nuclear submarine is sunk by a careless fishing vessel and lands on a crumbling ledge above a yawning abyss.Arriving at the tail-end of the 1970's disaster cycle, this half-baked thriller toplines catastrophe stalwart Charlton Heston (going through the motions) as an iron-jawed captain who preserves morale amongst his surviving crewmembers while awaiting rescue by military top brass (including Stacy Keach and David Carradine). Unfortunately, the basic scenario - remarkably similar to another sub-in-peril drama, MORNING DEPARTURE, filmed in 1950 - is fairly humdrum, and once it's been established that the survival of Heston's crew depends on work carried out by a unique exploratory vessel created by Carradine, the plot begins to alternate between non-activity in the sub and endless journeys to and from the stricken vessel by Carradine's miniature craft. TV director David Greene fails to generate much excitement, and the outcome is entirely predictable. Co-stars Ned Beatty and Christopher Reeve were re-teamed later the same year in Reeve's break-out movie, SUPERMAN.