Torpedo Run

Plot synopsis:
The American submarine Grayfish, under Lieutenant Commander/Commander Barney Doyle (Glenn Ford), searches for the Shinaru, one of the Japanese aircraft carriers that led the attack on Pearl Harbor. Doyle receives word that the target has an escort, including a transport ship Yoshida Maru carrying his wife and child, who were captured in the Philippines.
As luck would have it, Grayfish finds the ships. Doyle's second in command, Lieutenant/Lieutenant Commander Archer Sloan (Ernest Borgnine) tries to talk his friend out of risking the lives of his family, but Doyle proceeds with the attack. To their horror, their torpedoes sink the transport. The Japanese make no attempt to rescue the survivors, hoping to lure the sub to the surface. Doyle is forced to leave the prisoners to drown.
Doyle manages to follow the Shinaru into Tokyo Bay itself and tries again to sink his nemesis, but fails and barely escapes from Japanese destroyers. The Grayfish then returns to Pearl Harbor. There, Vice Admiral Setton (Philip Ober) wants to promote Doyle to a desk job, but his anguished second-in-command Sloan begs on behalf of his friend and superior officer for and gets one last chance at the Shinaru. Sloan turns down a command of his own to accompany him.
Doyle is assigned a quiet, out-of-the-way patrol area off the Alaskan coast, but fortune is with him. He encounters the Shinaru once more. The sub sustains some damage from a collision and has to launch its attack using sonar alone. After the torpedoes are away, the sub is sent to the bottom by the Shinaru's escort. Fortunately, the crewmen are able to exit and use Momsen lungs to reach the surface, where they are rescued by a sister sub, who sinks the escort. When they are brought aboard, they are told that they have sunk the Shinaru.

Tags: revenge, flashback

Review:
A sub's duty was to sink enemy shipping and there would be days of boredom followed by hours of gut wrenching tension amid depth charging, and constantly being chased under by aircraft.
Das Boot, Enemy Below, Run Silent, Run Deep and others.Glenn Ford is always at his best playing this type of character.
Being someone who grew up watching him in McHale's Navy as a child and later learning just how great of an actor he can be, is a treat.I do think the flashback scenes hurt the pace of the movie, but are necessary for context.The movie is well filmed and makes great use of color.
Here, the color is big plus.I love Submarine movies probably because I know, that if I had the honor to of served in the U.S. Armed Forces, this would be the last place I'd want to be.
Glenn Ford is excellent as Barney Doyle, the war weary sub commander who has to make command decisions which will haunt him the rest of his life.
The director, Joseph Pevney, does a good job of creating an atmosphere of tension as the Americans hunt down the prize of the Japanese fleet--the ship which ultimately costs Doyle his family.
My favorite scene is when the American sub sneaks into Tokyo Bay in search of the Japanese carrier.
Admittedly, Torpedo Run is not as gritty and intense as Das Boot, nor is it as action-packed as The Hunt For Red October, but in its own way it is on par with both of these fine films.
If you like 1950s WWII movies or if you're a Glenn Ford fan, you can't miss with Torpedo Run. It's one of those movies I have to watch at least a couple of times each year..
Suspenseful WWII sea epic in which an American submarine chases a Japanese aircraft carrier.
In 1942, the commander of the submarine USS Grayfish, Barney Doyle (Glenn Ford) commands a motley crew such as : Lt. Jake 'Fuzz' Foley (Dean Jones) , 'Hash' Benson (L.Q. Jones) , Lt. Redley (Robert Hardy) , Lt. Burt Fisher (Paul Picerni) and especially the second-in command Lt. Archer 'Archie' Sloan (Ernest Borgnine) with whom Barney has a special relationship .
Glenn Ford gives a good acting as an able ship's captain well respected by his men and effective at sea , who pursues the ship that led the attack on Pear Harbour back Tokyo .
Barney Doyle/Glenn Ford and Lt. Archer 'Archie' Sloan/Ernest Borgnine .
As a main premise results to be an engaging issue : a ship transporting his family is acting as a shield for the Akagi carrier forcing Doyle to make a terrible decision, as his country comes first and he blows the freighter out of water .
The film is known as one of the most famous WWII submarine movies, though some scenes at sea, however, suffer from the utilization of obvious models in a just as obvious studio tank .
Pevney shot all kinds of genres as Comedy , Film Noir , Mystery , Drama , such as : ¨Who is the black Dahilia ?¨, ¨The strange door¨, ¨Man of a thousand faces¨, ¨Mysterious Island of beautiful women¨, ¨Cash McCall¨, ¨Tammy and the bachelor¨, ¨Istanbul¨, ¨Because of you¨ and Westerns as ¨Night of Grizzly¨ .This ¨Torpedo run¨ represents one of a select group of a few World War II submarine movies which have won the one single Academy Award in a technical category, that's just only the one Oscar in either special effects or sound editing.
Furthermore , other important films about submarine are ¨Run Silent Run Deep¨, ¨Crimson tide¨ by Tony Scott with Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman; ¨K19¨ with Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson and the best ¨Das Boot¨ (1982) by Wolfgang Petersen with Jurgen Prochnow ..
It's very easy to express tension in these type of movies , of having silent routine as enemy ships patrol over head dropping depth charges and have close ups of submarine crewmen with beads of sweat slowly dripping down there foreheads but DAS BOOT did this type of drama so effectively and so vividly any successor would be a very pale imitation TORPEDO RUN on its own merits isn't a bad film .
Like so many other films especially American war films there's a fair bit of artistic licence used such as no American submarine actually penetrated the Tokyo harbour during the war and the mega massive Japanese aircraft carrier is an invention for the film .
There is a slightly annoying aspect and that is many of the model shots look unconvincing but this is common problem seeing as scale involving fire and water are impossible to achieve on screen and even DAS BOOT suffered slightly from this One thing the film does deserve great credit for is the British character Lt Redley played by Robert Hardy .
Too many model shots of ships, and the interior of the sub really does feel like a studio set, especially due to the lighting design.One thing that is especially interesting about TORPEDO RUN is a sub evacuation sequence in which the seamen exit the submarine at the floor of the ocean using Momsen-lungs, special breathing devices.
These devices are very rarely shown in submarine movies.A much, much better sub movie was released a few months before this one: RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP..
More a drama than an action film, this movie may have a fairly simplistic plot line and a few implausible events but it's primarily about the sort of awful decisions men sometimes have to make in war and the actors all do an admirable job of conveying different reactions to the consequences of a bad call.
Ernest Borgnine is as always superb as his first officer and best friend and the very personal events unfolding in front of the entire crew give an excellent example of how an extremely insular environment like a submarine can be, while still stripping everyone on board of the luxury of privacy.
The setting--World War II, and a hunt for an infamous Japanese aircraft carrier--are handled well and if details aren't 100%, it is no less accurate than most Hollywood submarine films, with an interesting personal tone amidst the technical and Navy confines..
If you are interested in the way the Navy crew operates under the ocean floors,  you will love this great Navy story about how the U.S. Navy was able to out wit the enemy which was Japan during WWII and all the tricks of the trade that were utilized under the very depths of the Pacific Ocean.
The photography was great for a 1958 film and  Glenn Ford( Lt. Cmdr.Barney Doyle),"Pocket Full of Miracles",'61, gave a great performance along with some mental blocks that was interfering with his command of his submarine.
However, Ernest Borgnine(Lt.Archer Sloan),"Marty",'55, was a loyal officer to Barney and turned down his own commission as Commander to assist Barney in  his hopes to destroy a FLAT TOP (aircraft carrier) of the Japanese Navy.
Barney Doyle (Glenn Ford) is pursuing the Japanese ship that led the attack on Pearl Harbor back to Tokyo, where to all intents and purposes, he plans to enact revenge.
For this freighter houses American prisoners of war, among them Doyle's own wife and child.A well put together psychological thriller by director Joseph Pevney that is formed from a novel by Richard Sale {who co-writes the screenplay with William Wister Haines}.
Tho the usual problems that exist with WW2 film's from this era are evident here {racist undertones, jingoistic sloganeering & hierarchy back slapping}, Torpedo Run manages to break away from its inheritance to become a taut involving aquatic drama fit to be named alongside the best in the submarine sub-genre of war movies.Glenn Ford's performance is well layered and credible.
Although they are hard from convincing by todays standards of course.Glenn Ford was a great choice for the main lead, as the tough looking but sensitive commander.
Ernest Borgnine forms a good duo with him, as the submarine's lieutenant.
A fair war movie, but better than average submarine flick.
Lt. Commander Barney Doyle (Glenn Ford) is forced to conduct war with a Japanese prison ship carrying his family.
The torpedo attack in the Tokyo bay is magnificent, specially due to the time the film was made..
When I first saw this I got caught up in the drama & fine acting that Glenn Ford & Ernest Borgnine put into the script.
At least the film is logical & creates good drama.Looking at it the second time, there is no way with World War 2 equipment that the sub could go through a mine field like that.
These submarine films always follow the pattern of playing out the relationship of the determined Captain and the watchful, suspicious second in command.
The film starts fine then gradually becomes absurd as feverish Ford turns into Captain Ahab relentlessly in search of his white whale---in this case the Japanese carrier Shinaru.
In an earlier scene, Ford is "forced" to torpedo a transport filled with 1400 civilians, including Ford's wife and child (caught in Manila) that is being used as a screen to protect the Shinaru.
Glenn Ford and Ernest Borgnine give solid and believable performances.
I also didn't like it when Barney Doyal kept insisting on firing the torpedoes to sink the Shinaru when he knew and was constantly being told be two of his officers that the transport carrying his family was in the way.
If you want to see a good submarine movie, I recommend "Run Silent, Run Deep".
Glenn Ford and Ernie Borgnine are best buddies and Captain and Exec aboard the Greyfish.
". Choosing from among the war time navel stories written by Richard Sale, director Joseph Pevney selected this one entitled " Torpedo Run.
" It tells the saga of Lt. Commander Barney Doyal (Glenn Ford), a Submarine commander who remembers the Akagi, the attack ship which lead the attack on Pearl harbor on December 7th 1941.
Believing his immediate family is safe and out of Harms way, Doyal is out at sea searching for the enemy when his Superiors send him a message that his family has been put aboard a transport ship, being used to Screen and protect the Akagi and dares him to attack his aircraft Carrier while Doyal's family is screening it.
I happen to like submarine movies, but normally the plot situations are the same in every one of them.
Torpedo Run though it bares most resemblance to the Cary Grant World War II film from Warner Brothers, Torpedo Run has a unique involvement of Ford's family in combat.Japanese intelligence has marked Ford as one of America's top submarine commanders so when on a mission, Ford receives word that his wife and three young daughters have been accounted for in the Phillipines and are being held by the Japanese, you've got to wonder.
A transport ship with the civilian prisoners is screening the new pride of the Japanese fleet, one humongous aircraft carrier.
That's not something Cary Grant faced in Destination Tokyo or any other American submarine skipper in any other film I remember.It's a grim Glenn Ford we see doing his duty in World War II.
The flashback sequences before the war involving Ford and Brewster are poignant and contribute to the overall tension of Torpedo Run.The combat and rescue sequences are well staged.
My guess is that Ford was cast in this role seeing how well he performed in another film involving a pressure situation, Ransom.Glenn Ford's legion of fans and fans of World War II films in general will applaud Torpedo Run..
Then, a couple of years back I decided to spend Veteran's Day watching war movies and I decided to rent three "submarine" movies that came out almost at the same time, "The Enemy below", (19570, "Run Silent Run Deep", (1958) and "Torpedo Run", (also 1958).
Captain of the submarine is obsessed with sinking a Japanese aircraft carrier.
His quest might cost everything he's got.The aircraft carrier the captain of the sub is after Shinaru is a fictitious ship based on an actual carrier called Shinano which was the biggest carrier Japanese navy ever commissioned.
He should have stepped back and took a look more objectively.The movie was middle of the road in terms of production, but Glen Ford, and Ernest Borgnine puts in a okay performance.
I'm saying this because I've seen them do better.Not one of the best submarine movie to be made, but it does capture the atmosphere..
Production rivals around that time would have to include 'Run Silent, Run Deep' and 'Submarine Seahawk', both of which took place in the Pacific war theatre.
I suspect his only raison d'etre, based on his experiences in the European theatre, was to offer the captain a way out of the minefield by firing a torpedo into the mines, thereby leaving the lurking Japanese anti-submarine vessels with the thought that his boat had hit one of them..
As things are, by taking such a reckless action, knowing that the freighter contained some 1400 POW's and civilians, the sub commander was surely liable to a war-crime charge.
It's not high on the "must see" list but it's got Glenn Ford in it so...it's worth a watch.The subs captain is living in Manila with his wife and child before the war starts in the Pacific.
The Japs know what sub captains are in the area and decide to take a troop ship of prison camp detainees, 2 who include his wife and child, all the way to Japan.
The captain tries to shoot the Carrier anyhow...and misses...hitting and sinking the transport ship...killing his wife and child.
This is a reasonably well-done tale of a submarine commanded by Glenn Ford, with Ernest Borgnine as his friend and executive officer, during World War II.Ford and Borgnine are called back from the Philippines to Pearl Harbor, leaving Ford's wife and little girl behind.
By the time Ford and Borgnine take their boat out, the family has been captured.
There are a few flashbacks to the happy times that Ford, his family, and Borgnine spent together, but in the end the wife and little blond girl die.
if you want to see a proper submarine movie, burt lancaster & clark gable in run silent run deep or curt jurgens & robert mitchum in the enemy below are far superior fare..
Pretty pat submarine drama starring Glenn Ford and Ernest Borgnine.
Directed by Joseph Pevney, and written by William Wister Haines and Richard Sale, this average World War II submarine drama stars Glenn Ford and Ernest Borgnine; Ford is the commander of a submarine and Borgnine is his first officer.
Like most in this genre, Ford plays a tortured, determined sub captain who's chasing a "holy grail"-like target, in this case a Japanese "flat top", a new aircraft carrier named Shinaru; Borgnine's character is also Ford's friend who helps and/or covers for his commanding officer (C.O.).The cast includes a number of supporting actors including Diane Brewster, who plays Ford's wife in a couple of flashback sequences, Dean Jones as Foley and L.Q. Jones as Benson are two members of Ford's crew, Philip Ober as Ford's C.O., and William Schallert (uncredited) as another sub's commander.
The film's Effects, which are really nothing special, received an Academy Award nomination.The story is compelling at times, but is also full of the usual clichés:Lieutenant Commander Barney Doyle (Ford) is Admiral Samuel Setton's (Ober) best submarine captain; his "Grey Fish" has attained an impressive record of success sinking enemy targets.
When word finally surfaces that Jane (Brewster) and their daughter Dede (Kimberly Beck, uncredited in her screen debut) have been found alive and well in a Japanese internment camp, it's soon followed by news that the sought after carrier Shinaru is being screened by a transport ship with 1,400 prisoners-of-war, likely including Doyle's family, and two destroyers, dubbed "tin cans".Naturally, Barney and his crew is given the opportunity to take a crack at sinking the target but the captain, despite pleas from his first officer Lieutenant Archie Sloan (Borgnine), takes an ill- advised risk and accidentally shoots the transport ship instead.
Now unable to using either periscope, Barney decides to let Archie help make the decision to continue the quest to sink the Japanese carrier, which they do despite great risk to themselves and their crew.
SYNOPSIS: Barney Doyle, sub commander of the U.S.S. Grayfish, has two major concerns: one, he worries over the fate of his wife and child, taken prisoner by the Japanese when Manila fell; and two, he wonders if he'll ever get a crack at the Japanese carrier, Shinaru, flagship of the Pearl Harbor attack.
The Japanese scheme works — the Shinaru escapes into Tokyo Bay. VIEWERS' GUIDE: Adults.COMMENT: Few people set out to make a bad movie.
An audience composed entirely of rabid Glenn Ford and/or Ernest Borgnine fans is the only one I can nominate that would enjoy "Torpedo Run".
Good, but it's hard to recommend this over many better submarine films.
However, it suffers from a serious glut in the genre--there are just so many really, REALLY good submarine films.
Just off the top of my head, DESTINATION TOKYO, OPERATION PACIFIC, RUN SILENT RUN DEEP, CRASH DIVE, THE ENEMY BELOW and the amazing DAS BOOT all come to mind as great sub films--all of which clearly surpass TORPEDO RUN.
However, if you haven't had too much of all this sort of film, then by all means give this film a look.The film stars Glenn Ford and Ernest Borgnine.
Borgnine, on the other hand, while not the official star of the film seemed to have a better and more interesting role as the second in command who is friends with Ford but a bit worried about his boss' mental state.
The reason this is a concern is that apparently Ford's wife and daughter are aboard a Japanese prisoner ship that their sub accidentally sinks (this is WAY too coincidental a plot device--I mean, what are the chances?!?).