SincereFinest disgusting, overrated, pointless

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

sddavis63 I watched this mainly as a curiosity because of the pairing of Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis. As I understand it, this was the only movie they ever made together. I really don't know much about either of them as actors. To me, they're the former president and first lady of the United States, and I don't really recall having seen either of them in any other movie. This was one of Reagan's last movies before he went into television and then politics. I've heard a lot of jokes around Reagan's acting career - but based on this I'd say those have more to do with people not liking his presidency than his acting. I can understand why his career was in "B" movies. He wasn't great in this, but he wasn't bad either.The movie was a bit formulaic. Reagan played Captain Abbott - a submarine commander in the Pacific in World War II. As the movie opens he has to make a decision that results in the death of a crewman. Coincidentally, that crewman was involved romantically with a nurse named Helen (Davis) - who had previously been involved with Abbott. This set up tension between Abbott and his executive officer, Landon (Arthur Franz) who believed Abbott had been influenced by jealousy.The movie wasn't bad. There were a few suspenseful scenes as Abbott's sub either attacked or was being attacked by Japanese vessels. I thought it strange that, given the tension and distrust between them, the US Navy would keep Abbott and Landon together, and the whole thing came down to a predictably happy ending for all.I'd say this movie was OK, as was Reagan's performance. I may have watched it out of curiosity because of Reagan and Davis, but having watched it what really strikes me as interesting was the opening prologue by Admiral Chester Nimitz, who clearly thought that the story of Pacific submariners needed to be told. (6/10)

frankjosephmoulder Where do I start. Hellcats was the name for naval aircraft the F6F Grumman not submarines.They were Gatos. The submarine goes from a normal sized tube for a Gato class sub to a tube large enough to hold a 10' ceiling. Ronald Reagan's acting was as stiff as it gets. The dialog between him and Nancy Davis was as contrived as it gets. The dialog in general sounded like it was a Mark 7 production. There was a scene where a Japanese sub was firing its deck gun while the muzzle of the deck gun was still moving. Miraculous gunners they were because that shot and every other hit target. There were enrichment shots in the film that looked more like U boats than Gatos. The important thing is this movie ruined Ronald Reagan's film career. From this movie came TV and a B movie or two(made for big and little screens) and finally life in the desert as narrator of "Death Valley Days".

edwagreen Routine submarine warfare film engaged in the old story of how one reacts when one is in command. Obviously, when the shoe is on the other foot, we act accordingly.Nancy Davis did a poor job here. She was certainly no Jane Wyman. Thank the lord that she just said no to a further movie career and went on her way with her Ronnie and the rest is history!Reagan is a real commander here. Am surprised he didn't want to cut men in his never ending assault on cuts. O yes, this was the military and he was strong on defense.No wonder, after seeing this tedious film, that it is said that Jack Warner told Reagan that his career was over. Look what Jack didn't know what was in store for us.The film itself has some strengths, particularly where the bombs go off. It ably showed that team effort will pay off, especially when the code of discipline is enforced.The film might have worked better if it were in color and Ann Sheridan was the nurse. That would have made a 15 year reunion between the future president and Ann, after the marvelous King's Row. That was President Reagan at his best in his movie career.

Robert J. Maxwell You have to feel sorry for anybody who tries to write the screenplay for a submarine movie. How is it possible to avoid all the established clichés? The shattered chronometer, the bursting pipe, the ritual commands, the toy submarine nosing through the murk, the wounded skipper lying on the deck and ordering the boat down, the periscope slicing the sea, the tin can approaching at high speed, the pinging sonar gear, the tense sweaty faces, the walloped camera as the depth charge explodes, the conflict between the CO and the Exec, the playful bantering of the crew, a down-the-throat shot.Added to that are the problems that any Navy movie has. The men have no chance at individual heroism and practically none of being dramatically wounded. (Unless one of them gets appendicitis or has a torpedo fall on him, which happens from time to time.) Basically, the crew are there for comic purposes, so the burden of the drama must fall on the officers. The question can never be about who is going to rush out with his tommy gun and save the rest of the patrol, so it can only be about whose judgment is correct, the skipper or one of his officers. (Sometimes a romantic conflict on the beach is thrown in, but that's rather arbitrary, kind of like the appendicitis patient.) This one isn't too bad, as sub movies go, but it arrives late in the post-war genre. Nobody in it is weak. The enemy is dehumanized, the dialogue trite and exhausted, the action scenes shot on the cheap, and the story is twisted, hard to follow, and sometimes pointless. (Example, midway through the movie a great deal is made of Captain Reagan's having brought back an accurate chart of the Japanese mine fields, but when the subs are sent out en masse it turns out the mines have been moved around so the chart is now irrelevant.) The performers do as well as they can under the circumstances, although Nancy Reagan is definitely in the wrong part here. The right parts would have been those taken by the elderly Bette Davis. The cast has a lot of familiar faces, but none of them memorable because of their having given good performances elsewhere, only memorable because we've seen them so often before.The director should be spanked. A man is knocked about during a depth charge attack and is taken to sick bay. After he's been treated and bandaged up, there are still trickles of blood down his chin and the side of his face. Once winces at such sloppiness. And there is another painfully staged scene, when Reagan and Davis are saying good-bye. Davis's face is in the foreground. She stares unblinkingly just to the left of the camera's lens while Reagan stands behind and speaks to her over her shoulder. This particular part of cinematic grammar must antedate cinema itself.Should you see it? Well -- why not. It's a historical curiosity if nothing else.