SUBMARINE SEAHAWK (1958)

In the Pacific during World War II, the submarine Seahawk comes upon a Japanese warship; their first two torpedoes go astray but the third strikes the target. They are then ordered back to Pearl Harbor to get a new assignment and a new skipper as Stoker, the current commander, is kicked upstairs to an office job. Stoker turns in a negative report on Lt. Turner (he's a cold fish, too academic, and not especially well liked by the crew) and he recommends the friendlier Hallohan, but Capt. Boardman decides to put Turner in charge anyway, partly because their new mission involves intelligence gathered by Turner. It seems that some thirty Japanese warships have just disappeared from action and the Navy believes that they're in hiding near the Mariana Islands for some nefarious plan. Boardman wants the Seahawk to go out on a reconnaissance mission to find the ships so the Navy can attack. Among the sailors under the taciturn Turner: Bellis, a naïve farm boy; Flowers, who's making it his mission to get the lad interested in girls; a radio operator; a "bearded sonar man" (which is how he listed in the credits); a new man named Shore who is on his first assignment and a little fragile; and Hallohan who, despite being overlooked for command, puts on a brave face and does his duty. The crew doesn't know that Turner was ordered not to risk engaging the enemy, so when the ship comes near a Japanese ship, the men resent Turner's order not to fire. Eventually, as the sub navigates mined waters in pursuit of a ship, Shore, the new guy, has a breakdown, threatening the men and their mission.

Until they found their niche with movies aimed at the teen market, American International dabbled in war films, distinctly B-movie affairs as all their films were. The director, Spencer Gordon Bennet, was at the end of a long career doing B-westerns and serials, and this film starts out badly, with awkward group scenes and stagy dialogue delivery. Submarine movies need to make us feel a bit claustrophobic, and this one is a little less effective at that than others. But things pick up a bit when the ship goes back out on its main mission and the actors, most of whom I was unfamiliar with, are all adequate and in some cases a bit more. John Bentley (CALLING PAUL TURNER) is a solid lead as Turner, the unemotional leader whom we can sense has some anxiety beneath his quiet surface. Paul Maxwell is even better as the reliable Hallohan. Wayne Heffley (Stoker) and Frank Gerstle (Boardman) are fine in scenes showing them keeping track of things back at HQ. Predictable comic relief comes from Henry McCann as the farm boy and Steve Mitchell as his friendly tormentor. Brett Halsey gives a one-note performance as the neurotic Shore, but to be fair, the role is pretty much one-note. The most exciting moments in the movie are made effective with footage from other bigger-budgeted movies–I recognized some scenes from the 1943 Cary Grant film Destination Tokyo. A worthy choice for a B-movie Saturday afternoon. Pictured are Maxwell and Halsey. [Streaming]