Thunder Afloat

Plot synopsis:
In a New England port town, Pop Thorson (Wallace Beery) and Rocky Blake (Chester Morris) are rival tugboat owners. Thorson's boat has sunk in the shallow water while docked, and he is certain Blake sabotaged it to keep Thorson from winning a lucrative contract to move barges of military supplies. Thorson is a widower who built his own tugboat and lives on it with his adult daughter Susan (Virginia Grey). She loves her father, but also likes Blake (who denies the sabotage) and does not want the two men to fight.
As the United States has now entered World War I, the Navy is recruiting men for anti-submarine warfare. Susan and Pop Thorson trick Blake into enlisting by pretending Thorson is going to enlist himself. Thorson then gets the contract, but when his boat is afloat again and towing a barge, it encounters a German submarine. The Germans order the crew into the lifeboats and sink the tug and the barge.
When Thorson reaches port, he enlists at once. Due to his experience and the war emergency, he is immediately made an ensign and given command of one of the small new fleet of sub chasers based there. Thorson does not take well to naval discipline, particularly when his superior officer, in charge of the fleet, turns out to be Blake, who is now a lieutenant and dedicated to his duty. Blake respects Thorson's experience and tries to teach him how to behave, but there is little time and the message does not sink in well.
On their first mission, Thorson correctly reasons that any submarine would avoid the storm-wracked area where they were ordered to patrol, and would be in the lee of Nantucket Island. He violates orders, taking his ship there alone, and does find a German submarine; the same one. Sinking the sub would make the violation forgivable. But the German captain tricks the inexperienced Thorson into breaking off his attack by releasing oil from his vessel, and sinks a lightship before leaving. A cable then breaks on Thorson's vessel and tangles in the propeller. Thorson goes into the water to free it, but suffers a head injury. Blake then arrives on the scene and rescues him personally.
When Thorson recovers, he is court-martialed for insubordination, demoted to ordinary seaman, and put on shore duty. Desolate, he finally decides to desert and go to Canada with Susan; but Blake stops him just in time and gives him a new assignment. He will now join the crew of a decoy ship: looking like an ordinary fishing schooner, its crew pretending to be civilians, it will actually have a concealed radio to summon the sub chasers as needed.
Joining up with a fishing fleet, the decoy is indeed attacked — by the same submarine again. The Germans board and discover the radio, but Blake's fleet is already on the way. The crew fight with the boarding party and overcome them. With his captain incapacitated, Thorson orders the decoy ship to try to ram the submarine. The Germans sink it and take Thorson on board as a prisoner and hostage, then dive to the seabed. As they wait silently, he seizes an opportunity to shut himself in a room and bang on the hull with a wrench, telling the listening sub chasers where to find the sub.
Blake realizes he must attack despite the risk to Thorson. But fortunately, when the submarine is damaged it is still able to surface, and Thorson as well as its crew are taken off.
The film ends with Thorson receiving the Medal of Honor, restored to the rank of ensign, and again commanding a sub chaser, to the delight of Susan and the residents of the port.

Tags: revenge

Review:
MGM didn't think this one through very well did they?.
I'm giving this 6/10 mainly because anything with either Chester Morris or Wallace Beery is usually good viewing and this is no exception, but there are lots of problems with this one.This is a film about WWI that is actually pro-war and anti-German, something you rarely saw in the 1930's at either end of the decade.
At the beginning of the 1930's, before the rise of Hitler, people were still looking back at the pointlessness of WWI and most films presented it as such.
At the end of the decade, American films avoided any direct criticism of the Nazis because the studios were afraid of losing German business for their films and also because so many of the studio moguls of the era were Jewish themselves and did not want to call attention to that fact due to anti-Semitic feelings both here and abroad.What this film is basically doing is getting Americans accustomed to thinking of the Germans as the enemy without actually calling out Hitler's regime as the enemy.
The film starts out with two rivals in the shipping business who are not afraid to resort to violence and sabotage (Chester Morris as Rocky Blake and Wallace Beery as John Thorson).
The time is supposed to be the beginning of the entry of America into WWI, but our leads are hardly patriotic.
Rocky is tricked by Thorson into joining the navy so that Thorson can rid himself of his competition, and Thorson later joins up himself because a German sub sinks his ship and he wants payback.
Of course, Thorson finds himself under the command of Rocky, and time has healed no wounds on either side.
The whole thing plays out rather formulaicly.
If you don't know what I mean watch any film about the navy in which two enemies on land are forced to work together at sea against a common enemy.The real problem here is the art design and the acting of one player that really gums up the works.
First I'll discuss the art design.
A common problem in the early talkies was that films set in the past had people wearing the fashions of "present day" - 1930 or so.
By 1939 most studios were dressing their actors appropriately for the time period.
This film has everyone dressed as though it is 1939, not 1917.
Seeing Virgina Grey (as Thorson's daughter Susan) parade around in what appear to be knock-offs of Judy Garland's gingham dress from the Wizard of Oz can only conjure up visions of President Wilson in a zoot suit.
This brings me to the second problem - Virginia Grey's acting.
She's either talking like a gun moll - which doesn't go with the seafaring town setting - or she's bursting into tears like a twelve year old.
She gets quite tiresome before it's all over and thus there's no way I can believe the purported build up of sexual tension between her character and Rocky.Watch this one for Beery at his bellicose best, for Chester Morris when he was still in the angry phase of his acting career, and for the great naval action scenes.
Just remember this probably was not an A-lister for MGM in 1939 and try to overlook the flaws..
Seitz, Seitz & Beery.
By this point in his career, Wallace Berry had settled into the role of MGM's star galoot; accompanied by a kid -- in this case Virginia Grey, a perennial MGM starlet who rarely got a chance to shine -- and opposed by a juvenile lead -- here, the great Chester Morris -- they all get a chance to produce a lot of serio-comic fireworks around the sub-chaser service during the World War One East Coast raids.Tremendous credit must be offered to director George Seitz -- a specialist in comedy, now best remembered for the Andy Hardy series -- and director of photography John Seitz; sorry, they were not related.
These two veterans knew how and when to apply the high-priced gloss that MGM boasted in this period, but also when to settle back and let their actors carry the scenes: Beery, just staring as his ship goes down; Morris grinning as a surly Beery retreats; and Grey looking as if she is going to reach up and clunk the leading men's heads together.The Beery vehicles of this period were programmers, as close as MGM went to B pictures, carried on his aw-shucks charm.
In this one, he has to work for his star credit when everyone is working their hardest.
The result is among the best of his last decade..
Has Its Heart in the Right Place.
Thunder Afloat (1939)** (out of 4)Tugboat captain John Thorson (Wallace Beery) tricks his rival Rocky Blake (Chester Morris) into joining the Navy so that he can get a big deal.
However, the captain changes his mind about WW1 after his tugboat is struck by a German U-boat.
It's important to note where the U.S. was during 1939 when WWII was a hot topic and this country wasn't certain whether they were going to join or not.
It's clear that MGM and the producer's hearts were in the right place with THUNDER AFLOAT but I just found the thing to be way too stupid to be enjoyed.
The film starts off like you're watching some sort of bad comedy and what we've basically got is Beery acting like his big bear self while he takes on Germany all by himself.
There are some incredibly stupid scenes early on in this picture including one where Beery just punches the German U-boat captain and nothing really happens to him.
Yeah right!
Can you imagine what would happen to an American who punch a German captain?
There are countless scenes where Beery just acts like a moron and I'm sure people ate it up in 1939 but when viewed today it just doesn't work.
The entire film is rather flat as we watch Beery end up in the Navy where of course he meets up with his old pal Blake.
This leads to Beery and Morris exchanging a bunch of quick lines but none of them work.
Morris is one of my favorite forgotten actors but he's really not given too much to do.
It tells you something when actors like Beery and Morris can't bring any life to a picture.
Virginia Grey is good in her supporting role but she's not given too much to do.
THUNDER AFLOAT has its heart in the right place but the mix of politics, comedy and action just never fully work..
Fine movie about the U boat war off the Eastern US during WW 1.
It was definitely about WW 1 because one of the ships sunk was sunk off Long Island in 1918.
The USS San Diego was cruising 10 miles off Fire Island, NY in July of 1918 when it struck a mine that was laid by German U Boat 117 .
It sank bow first with the loss of 5 or 6 men .
The rest of the crew rowed ashore to Long Island and were saved.
It was over 500 feet long and it was the only US Capital ship sunk during WW 1.
The movie shows the San Diego hitting the mine and blowing up.
I have never seen a movie that mentioned the San Diego sinking.If you know anything about the U boat war off the Eastern US during WW 1 this movie makes sense.
They used the 110 foot sub-chasers the Navy had built to fight the U boats near shore.
They showed schooners being attacked on the surface by the U boats , many schooners were sunk with deckguns up and down the US east coast during WW 1.A very nice movie , the acting was pretty good and the story was good too..
Despite being a bit formulaic, it is a very good film..
"Thunder Afloat" is a very unusual film.
Although it appears to be a film about WWI, it really seems to be about WWII.
However, the US was officially neutral in 1939 and Congress actually enacted legislation forcing the studios to remain neutral (though this law clearly violated the US Constitution).
So, studios were VERY apprehensive to speak out against Hitler and Nazis.
But, by 1939 it appeared as if the US might be entering the war eventually and the human rights violations were too great to ignore--plus the war just broke out in Europe.
So if you wanted to find an anti-Nazi film in the US in 1939, you'd be VERY hard-pressed to find one aside from the VERY brave "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" (1939).
In order to bolster anti-German sentiment, "Thunder Afloat" shows Germans as evil...but this film is set in 1917, not 1939--a clever way to get around the stupid neutrality laws.The film begins with an old tugboat captain (Wallace Beery) tricking his 'friend' (Chester Morris) into joining the Navy during WWI.
However, soon Beery himself would join after his tugboat was sunk by a German sub.
Beery is given command of a patrol boat but mucks it up badly.
He won't take orders and acts as if he's a one-man Navy--and ends up is serious hot water with his commander--who is, incidentally, Morris!!
Is there any redemption or will Beery just be a dope and the US lose eventually the war because of him?
Is there any doubt!
Again, like so many US military films made about that time, the MAJOR theme is teamwork--most notably the power of the group over the individual.
However, the film manages to be both entertaining and fun--with a very rousing finish.
So, despite following formula, it does so very well.