RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP

This 1958 US submarine film was marketed as ‘Moby Dick’ meets ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’.

Captain Ahab here is Commander Richardson  (played by Clark Gable) who demands to be given command of a sub a year after his previous sub was sunk by a Jap destroyer, the Akikaze, in the Bungay Straits off Japan (quite how Richardson survived and got safely back to Pearl Harbor is glossed over). 

As the film progresses it becomes clear that Richardson is determined to return to the Bungay Straits in order to sink the Akikaze despite explicit orders not to do so.

Christian Fletcher here is EO Bledsoe (Burt Lancaster) who is aggrieved that he hasn’t been given command.  

The mood of the crew, who are very loyal to Bledsoe, becomes mutinous due to endless drills (among other things) but Bledsoe is having none of it even when Richardson orders the sub to the Bungay Straits.

Things then hot up considerably, what with an unsuccessful attack on the Akikaze, the US sub having to play dead, and Bledsoe feeling compelled to take over when Richardson picks up a head injury. 

At first Bledsoe heads for home but when he realises the Japanese really do think the US sub has been destroyed he decides to mount a surprise attack. With the help of Richardson this succeeds.

It’s all good exciting stuff, capably directed by Robert Wise.

Rather to my surprise we finish with an abrupt ending, of Richardson’s burial at sea, his head wound having turned out to be fatal.  It struck me as a rather unnecessary downbeat note to end on.

That small quibble aside the screenwriter John Gay seems to have done a good job streamlining the source novel, his debut assignment.  

Lancaster, whose company produced this film, must have thought so because John Gay was chosen again to help write the screenplay for ‘Separate Tables’, also released in 1958, which garnered Gay an Oscar nomination.