Given the fact that every sub in this movie ends up at the bottom of the ocean floor during sea trials I would venture to guess that Admiral Karl Dönitz saw this and figured, "Acht Di leiber! Our U-Boats vill annnnnhiliate zose Americahns!" This would lull anyone into thinking our sub fleet was sub par. But technically, this isn't a bad movie... it's just it's so predictable. George Brent's acting is as bland as the Navy's powdered eggs and lovable lug Wayne Morris is a near-idiot that somehow makes Chief (the Navy sure must've been different than when I was in it--- no board and no initiation!). Frank McHugh does a swell job of playing Lucky, a symbiotic twin of the character Droopy he played 3 years earlier in HERE COMES THE NAVY. Nice stock shots of the Panama Canal and much better than the usual Warner Bros. middling level special effects. All in all, I hope that this was planned as a cunning piece of disinformation rather than a testimonial to the skills of the U.S. Navy in the mid-1930's. I wonder if Swede Monson ever saw this?
Review of Submarine D-1
