Destination Tokyo
Tags: flashback

Plot synopsis:
On Christmas Eve, the submarine USS Copperfin, under the command of Captain Cassidy (Cary Grant), departs San Francisco on a secret mission. At sea, Cassidy opens his sealed orders, which direct him to proceed first to the Aleutian Islands to pick up meteorologist Raymond (John Ridgely), then to Tokyo Bay to obtain vital weather intelligence for the upcoming Doolittle Raid.
Two Japanese planes attack; both are shot down, but one pilot manages to parachute into the water. When Mike (Tom Tully) goes to pick him up, he is stabbed to death. New recruit Tommy Adams (Robert Hutton) shoots the pilot, but because he was slow to react, Tommy blames himself for Mike's death and volunteers to defuse an unexploded bomb stuck under the deck. When Mike is buried at sea, Greek-American Tin Can (Dane Clark) does not attend the service, which angers the other men until he explains that every Allied death causes him great pain. Meanwhile, Raymond, who lived in Japan, discusses how the Japanese people were led into the war by the military faction.
As the submarine nears Tokyo Bay, the Copperfin has to somehow negotiate its way through protective minefields. When a Japanese ship enters the bay, Cassidy follows in its wake. That night, a small party goes ashore to make weather observations. Meanwhile, Tommy is diagnosed with appendicitis. Pills, the pharmacist, has to operate following instructions from a book, using improvised instruments. (There were actually a few emergency appendectomies performed in the course of wartime submarine patrols.)
Raymond broadcasts the information in Japanese in an attempt to avoid detection, but the Japanese are alerted and search the bay. Fortunately, the Copperfin remains undetected, allowing the men to watch part of the raid through the periscope. After recovering Raymond and his team, the submarine then slips out following an exiting ship. (In reality, no American submarines ever got into the inner part of Tokyo Bay.)
Later, the Copperfin sinks an aircraft carrier and is badly damaged by its escorts. In desperation, Cassidy attacks, sending a destroyer to the bottom and enabling the crew to return safely to San Francisco.

Review: This movie is a great example of a thriller, not looking to be a non-fiction account of a WWII sub, just a great story with a group of true professionals.
Cary Grant was so compelling in this role that Tony Curtis said he based his famous part in Some Like It Hot on Cary Grant's performance in this picture, and that Curtis always wanted to do a movie with Grant on a submarine from that moment forward---and of course got his wish with Operation Petticoat.
The same Japanese military also starved its own people in places like Okinawa to feed itself, and I would hope that all people would now be familiar with the 'rape of Nanking,' so what was called propaganda was more just the way of the world at the time.
Here is a great small war movie propelled with the talents of star Cary Grant and a fine supporting cast to boot.
I saw a in previous review, where a reader said that the movie stared Alan Hale, before he went on to Captain his own boat in Gilligan's Island.
Cary Grant does a good job as Captain, and I enjoyed the drama of Torpedoman Adams getting hit with an appendicitis while the sub is in Tokyo Bay. It also showed that people die during a war.
With all the stir over Bruckheimer and Bay's silly PEARL HARBOR action ride, you might want to see some more realistic and gritty war films.
This film will keep you on the edge of your seat when the sub comes under fire from the Japanese Destroyer's while one of the crew is having surgery by a man who knows nothing about appendicitis.
Made during the second world war this film obviously shows its propaganda heritage.
It does contain all the 'token' characters of a NAVY film including the hothead, rookie, bragger, comedy cook but I believe thats probably because it was the first film with these elements.The underwater scenes are a little 'Thunderbirds' but they do convey the tension properly and Grant flows with Captain 'esk speeches including the 'Roller Skates' one which is a little bizarre.Over all a top notch underwater fiesta..
Since the Doolittle raid was in April of 1942, the movie has to begin on Christmas day 1941 - a little less that three weeks after the US got into the war.
It's not a great film for our times mostly because it's overflowing with lessons, with the propagandistic style of persuading us the Japanese were bad and the U.S. soldiers, with all their wonderful flaws, were out to save us.I say this first because it's a lot of baggage to wade through.
The other side to this coin is an adventure war movie where Cary Grant is in charge of a submarine out for a special mission.
The one older actor is the cook played by character actor Alan Hale, who is appropriately comic.So, what you get is some very talented people explaining the current events, including lots of anti-Japanese chat.
For those who hate America and think the Second World War was "useless", this will be a corny movie and propaganda.
The entire cast is exceptional, and the film even manages to avoid much of the ugly racism that often mars many other war-themed movies form this era.
A somewhat unusual film for lead actor Cary Grant, cast very much against type, and the commanding actor pulls it off with great aplomb..
Gripping WW2 film with Cary Grant as the captain of a Navy submarine tasked with a scouting mission ahead of the Dollittle Raid in April of 1942.
The crew of the sub includes John Garfield, Alan Hale, Dane Clark, Tom Tully, and William Prince.
Second movie of both John Forsythe and Robert Hutton, cousin to Cary Grant's then-wife Barbara Hutton.A classic war movie, well directed by Delmer Daves with a smart script that focuses heavily on character more than action.
Cary Grant is always entertaining, and you might notice Alan Hale as the cook, before he went on to skipper his own boat in "Gilligan's Island."  If you like submarine films or World War II films this one is worth seeing..
I mean when you are laughing and recalling the days of playing with toys like this in your bathtub as a kid, it's hard to take the movie seriously.I don't mean to sound this harsh but after viewing "Master and Commander: Far Side Of The World" and "Das Boat" and a several other films involving ships and submarines, It's tough to go back and watch something that looks this unrealistic, despite a good cast and decent script.I will defend this film - and others of the period, however, for its patriotism.
It's what passes for bravery in these movies.Now in the case of "Destination Tokyo" can we really talk about realism when the submarine is usually an obvious model, when the captain sends the sub down to 150 feet and we can see the sunlight reflecting off the surface of the water a couple of feet over the model?Enjoy the movie for what it is, but let's get rid of the pretence that these are realistic to any significant degree.
I'd put it a notch below "Run Silent, Run Deep" a 1957 sub sage starring Gable and Lancaster and I would say the biggest reason is that Robert Wise brought RSRD in at 93 minutes, with virtually no wasted scenes while Delmer Davies brings DT in at a bit bloated 2:15 that could have easily had at least .20 minutes edited from without ruining the story.Cary Grant, in a solid dramatic performance plays a veteran sub commander who receives an assignment to take his sub into Tokyo Bay shortly after the 12/7/41 attack to do surveillance and collect information for the Doolittle Raiders, whose attack on Tokyo was successfully carried out the following April.
Except it does allow the script writers to put in an exciting air attack from Jap fighter planes that leads to the death of a crewman, a funeral at sea and several speeches by crew about why we are fighting this war.There are a couple of flashback scenes that are really needless, but DT pays off with some top notch drama that captures the tension and camaraderie of a sub crew, plus some terrific action when Grant and his crew have to fight their way out of Tokyo Bay and sustain a lengthy depth charge attack.
Some good performances by familiar faces playing crew members, among them John Garfield as a perpetually horny sailor, Dane Clark, Robert Hutton and WB veteran Alan Hale, as always playing everyone's best pal whether he was on the prairie, in Sherwood Forest or on the seas..
***SPOILERS*** On Christmas Eve 1941 some two weeks after the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor the US attack submarine Copperfin slips out of San Francisco Bay on a secret mission that even it's office in charge Capt.Cassidy, Cary Grant, has no idea what it is.
Cassidy opens up, as he was ordered to before he took off,the safe in his cabin where there's a letter of instructions to where he and the crew of the Coppenfin are headed for; Destinaion Tokyo.Highly charged war action/drama with Capt.
Cassidy, who despite being a native of Oklahoma City sounds as if he's from Birmingham England, and his all American crew consisting of the womanizing, mostly in his mind, and wise cracking Wolfie, John Garfield, who found out after his tour at sea that the sub Copperfin was the best girl that he ever had a date with.
There's Tin Can, Dane Clark, a sarcastic and disillusioned young sailor who doesn't believe in a heaven life after death or a higher power but becomes religious after his experience, or spiritual awakening, in surviving the hell on earth that was Tokyo Bay. Together with the rest of the sub's crew that includes "Cookie" (Alan Hale) the sub's cook, I guess that why he's called "COOKie", and young Tommy Adams, Robert Hutton, out on his first tour of sea duty and the on boat "doctor" Pill, William Prince, who doubles as the ships pharmacist, or is it the other way around.
This is to be done so that the Japs wouldn't get suspicious, for the planned moral boosting Jimmy Dolittle raid on Tokyo.Very tense and exciting war movie with the Copperfin under strict orders to avoid any action, and maintain strict radio silence with the US fleet, in order not to expose the mission that she's on.
Cassidy's and the sub's crew expert handling slips past the Japanese Navy, as well as an impregnable submarine net, by shadowing, underwater a Japanese heavy cruiser and it's destroyer escort into the heavily defended Tokyo Harbor.In conjunction with the US bomber attack on the city the Copperfin again shadowing a number of Japanese war ships quietly sails out of Tokyo Bay as the action there get hot and heavy.
The Copperfin then runs into a large Jap naval task force slated to engage the US carrier group defending the USS aircraft carrier Hornet who's responsible for all the havoc caused in the Pearl of the Rising Sun, Tokyo.Nerve-racking Japanese attack, with an almost inexhaustible supply of deadly depth charges, on the Copperfin after it deep-sixth a Jap flat-top (aircraft carries) thus exposing it's presence,and position.
Sub movies up to recent times are one way or another seeking to borrow the formula Delmer Davies conceived for this timeless war picture.
John Garfield nails it as the more-talk-than-action with the dames "Wolf." Dane Clark hits a homer as a transfer from the surface navy to the special world of the submariner.
A young Tony Curtis saw this movie and enlisted in the Navy during the war in hopes of becoming a submariner too (he didn't but years later he played one in Operation Petticoat along with his idol Cary Grant).
The submarine sent on this deadly mission was captained by Cary Grant who should have done something better for the war effort.
Every submarine film eventually comes back with the same clichés and Destination Tokyo is no different.
And topping it all off, young Robert Hutton comes down with appendicitis and ship's pharmacist's mate William Prince operates on him with the Japanese fleet on top.The only thing I wonder is did the Japanese make a war propaganda film for their side about how a daring submarine sailed into Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and choreograph that whole attack?.
Grant played a tough minded yet basically tender hearted skipper whose objective was to drive his submarine right into Tokyo Harbor.
The entire film was a plain effort at glorifying a useless war to the homefront, complete with a stirring speech by Grant on the honor of giving one's life so kids can wear roller skates instead of guns.
All the clichés of the period are present, from the boastful Romeo (John Garfield) to the lovable wise-cracking cook (Alan Hale Sr.) to the no nonsense captain (Cary Grant) to the fresh-faced kid (Robert Hutton, a disturbingly real presence in an otherwise super-slick cast), replete with the usual rites of passage, etc..
Above average World War II drama featuring Cary Grant and John Garfield.
Heretofore screenwriter Delmer Daves directed his first film, and assisted Albert Maltz with the screenplay of this Steve Fisher story about a submarine crew charged with infiltrating Tokyo bay in order to provide valuable information to the first Allied bombing mission of that city.There's an interesting reference to this real mission in a movie about that James Doolittle-led bombing mission, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), which was made by a different studio (MGM).
Unusual casting and the human aspects of its personnel mark this above average (not P.C.) World War II (Warner Bros.) film.Cary Grant plays the decorated Captain of the sub, John Garfield plays its heroic gunner, Alan Hale its sentimental cook, Dane Clark a crewman with an ax to grind, and Robert Hutton its newest member "The Kid".
William Prince plays the sub's "medical" staff, who's called upon to perform a miraculous operation when Hutton's character comes down with an appendicitis (based on a true story!).John Ridgely plays a Naval Officer who was raised in Japan, that's needed for the mission, and is picked up en-route.
John Forsythe (who with Hutton was making his credited film debut) plays the radio operator who, along with Garfield and Ridgely, goes ashore in Japan under cover of darkness to fulfill the task at hand..
Don't Take Any Wooden Yen. Suave submarine skipper Cary Grant (as Cassidy) leads a Christian crew from San Francisco to Tokyo Bay, to fight the Godless Japanese.
Star Grant is enjoyable, albeit not entirely successful, in an atypical war hero role.Soldiering John Garfield (as Wolf) and Dane Clark (as Tin Can) head up a likable crew.
Ouch!***** Destination Tokyo (12/31/43) Delmer Daves ~ Cary Grant, John Garfield, Dane Clark.
Talky and Overlong WWII Submarine Movie that was Made in the Middle of the War and is Heavy on Sentimentality and Propaganda.
These Sub Crew Members are Cut out of All Stripes from the American Flag and make No Bones about Speechifying and in One Case, John Garfield, Extreme Braggadocio about Babes.Cary Grant Plays Against Type as a Super Serious Commander with Nerves of Steel and a Countenance of Concrete.
An ur-submarine war movie from Warner Brothers.
And the Navy didn't want to release enough information about sonar equipment to make the scope look like anything other than an oscilloscope later sold to the producers of "Plan Nine From Outer Space."  And maybe it's hard to believe that Cary Grant would daydream about his kid's first haircut while the submarine is about to implode on him.
It must have been a change of pace for movie goers because Grant had not done much drama as he was always being cast in light comedies.I have watched the DVD version of this in the Cary Grant signature collection & the copy is very well made, like they found a pristine studio master to make it from.
At the time the film was made the Japanese military had committed far more atrocities than the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.
First I'd like to say that I could easily tell that Destination Tokyo was produced during the war rather than after due to its over the top patriotism.
And of course, they all love their country and miss their wives.The one particular scene which I found made this movie rise above the rest was the scene in which Cary Grant was explaining why the downed Japanese Airman killed their favorite torpedoman with a knife.
I thought this was a bold statement in a time of war, especially WWII.I really enjoyed this movie not only for the action but also because of the human story.
Morton sank 19 Japanese ships in his first year and a half--more than any other US sub at the time), the US Navy decided to break its rules on secrecy and allow news accounts of the USS Wahoo's patrols.
That movie is "Destination Tokyo" and it is said that Cary Grant met Capt.
To call this film "propaganda" as other reviewers have, is to belittle the USS Wahoo and the fantastic successes of its captain and crew who died in action after this film was released, and can only be excused on the basis of ignorance of the history behind the making of "Destination Tokyo." This film is important then both because it is based upon the success of a real US sub in action and because it was one of the early submarine films of the second World War.I regret that the news account: "A WWII Submarine Finally Comes Home Divers Find the USS Wahoo, the Most Storied of U.S. Subs By NED POTTER" which contains the interview and appeared at www.sungazette.com/News/articles.asp?articleID=11380 is no longer on the web so the above URL will not work..
Destination Tokyo-When War Films Meant Something ***.
Led by Cary Grant, a tough, but real family man, this film goes on to explain various situations, including an emergency appendectomy done by a pharmacist on board the ship.John Garfield, as Wolfie, steals the show.
The commander of this vessel is a man named "Captain Cassidy" (Cary Grant) and like many of the men who have served with him has 5 successful patrols to his credit.
Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that as far as "submarine movies" are concerned this film certainly ranks as one of the better ones out there.
By the time of its release of Warner Brothers DESTINATION TOKYO (1943), it was coming across crystal clear; The Allies were in for a long, drawn out war.
For some reason to me, it didn't seem logical that Cary Grant, of all people, could successfully captain a submarine.
Also, have fun listening to Tokyo Rose who war predictions will turn out to be absolutely false.When Cary Grant says, "I hear that a lot of Japanese are happy to die for their emperor.
"Destination Tokyo" has great detail of showing life during war on a submarine where men of all walks of life became brothers to fight a battle they truly believed in..
Cary Grant - still doing his best in 1943 to avoid returning to England and enlist in the REAL armed forces unlike David Niven - is excellent as the captain as is John Garfield in his signature wise guy persona and, if it comes to that, the majority of the supporting cast..
I didn't sense that kind of palpable danger with "Destination Tokyo", primarily because of the ease with which Captain Cassidy (Cary Grant) made it into and out of Tokyo Harbor through the submarine net.
I miss Cary Grant in the dress (one of his other movies?)..
I thought of that as I watched this movie, since during coursework for my recent American History degree I studied what happened to the Japanese Americans during World War II.