Operation Pacific

source: Operation Pacific

Trailer—Operation Pacific

Operation Pacific

Lightly entertaining John Wayne submarine drama. The Pacific Theatre of WW2. Lt Commander Duke Gifford (played by John Wayne) is the Executive Officer of a US Navy submarine, the USS Thunderfish. The submarine fleet, incl the Thunderfish, is suffering from malfunctioning torpedoes. Meanwhile Commander Gifford is also trying to win back his ex-wife... A stereotypical John Wayne movie, i.e. overly gung ho and not that accurate, militarily. Some quite unrealistic battle scenes. The relationship side is mildly interesting but also overly melodramatic and complex. Not all bad though, as long as you don't think too much. The battle scenes are quite exciting and there are some insights into submarine life.

Just terrible in every way, especially the music, so irrelevant and generic. Every scene in this movie sucked big time. There's nothing to watch and absolutely bored you to death.

A world war II film set on a submarine with John Wayne, who takes over command after the commander, played by Ward Bond, is killed. It's your basic submarine film, nothing special about this one, but it is well made. John Wayne plays John Wayne, Patricia Neal does a good job and in one scene on the sub, you can see the men watch Destination Tokyo with Cary Grant.

A John Wayne war movie from 1951. Wayne plays second in command on a submarine as he struggles w/the engagements w/the Japanese (a number of the torpedoes don't explode) & trying to rekindle his relationship w/his ex-wife Stateside, played by Patrica Neal, who is also courting the brother of his commander. Being a film which John Ford didn't make, even though some of the supporting cast are Ford regulars (notably Ward Bond as Wayne's superior) makes this film feel like a Ford also ran. The usual amount of male camaraderie & boorish humor is evident but the whole doesn't quite add up making the adventure slightly off kilter but ultimately mildly entertaining. Look for future police officer Martin Milner (of Adam-12 fame) & William Campbell who famously essayed a couple of roles on the original Star Trek (Trelaine & the Klingon Koloth).

This movie, which i revisited on German and English DVD yesterday is definitely more in the B Movie of the Sub Marine Genre. They could have learned from watching Destination Tokyo more closely, as this was with all its limitations still a fine movie and much less a strange flag waver whilst closer to the actual war time. Ward Bond and John Wayne still look like somebody stole their horses and don't know where to go, the submarine is spacious as an Ikea show room and the stress level when depth charged more like a tenant being annoyed with next door noise when watching Super Bowl. What did work quite good was the Wayne - Neal relationship, which you will see much more developed and mature in Harm's Way about 20 years later. Not urgent to watch.

As movies about submarines go - and Hollywood has churned out its share of them - this is no better and no worse than any. If anything it's notable for early appearances by actors who would achieve recognition as the fifties progressed but then fade away despite appearing in notable films - I'm thinking of Martin Milner (Pete Kelly's Blues, Sweet Smell Of Success), William Campbell (Man Without A Star) and Philip Carey who went on to play Phillip Marlowe on TV. It is, of course, Duke Wayne's movie and he carries it well enough with Patricia Neal as the love interest and Ward Bond as mentor/friend. As someone born and bred in the UK I have no idea whether the central plot point of torpedoes that either failed to explode or else did so before reaching the target has any basis in fact but it's reasonable to assume that a major studio such as Warner Bros would employ fact-checkers to deal with such details so that on balance it was probably factual. Whatever it's certainly worth a look.

A middle-of-the-road submarine picture starring John Wayne that unfortunately didn't appeal much to me. First, I'm not a huge fan of Patricia Neal. I know, I know. She was a fine actress and I respect her. But as leading ladies go, she leaves me cold. Second, this is full of clichés and stereotypical plot lines, even for 1951. I'm not huge on war movies in general. Oh it's not some philosophical thing. I actually like a lot of the WW2-era war movies. But many of the ones made from the '50s onward, like this one, feel like programmers to me. There are exceptions, of course, and I praise those movies when I see them. But, for the most part, these types of movies are predictable and dull. There's an audience for this picture that will like it a lot but unfortunately I didn't.