User Reviews

After his submarine is sunk by a Japanese Akikase destroyer in the Bongo Straits off the coast of Japan in a 1942 encounter, Commander 'Rich' Richardson (Clark Gable) is put behind a desk for a while at Pearl Harbor...

During a year, the vessel that destroyed his battleship, sinks three other American subs that dare to enter Area Seven home of the Bungo Straits... Richardson is seen, reliving his Bungo failure, with one target in mind: Hunting down and destroying the Imperial Japanese Navy's Submarine...

His chance comes when the captain of another sub, the U.S.S. Nerka, reaches retirement... Richardson eventually convinces the Navy top brass for another chance and is given command...

The crew he inherits is antagonistic, as is his new executive officer, Lt. Jim Bledsoe (Burt Lancaster), who had hoped for the command himself...

Richardson cannot forget the Akikase and his nightmares about it... Determined to sink it, he puts his ship and crew through many difficult training maneuvers anticipating the inevitable encounter...

When he learns of the destroyer's whereabouts, he deliberately announces that the Nerka is going into the Bongo Straits in direct defiance of orders to knock out the Japanese ship...

The pairing of Gable and Lancaster as incompatible but mutually respectful naval officers is at the head of Robert Wise's motion picture... Later, of course, the destroyer against sub action reappears, but the most interesting sequences are when Wise stresses the human emotion of two screen icons, one on the ascent, and the other near the end of his career...

'Run Silent Run Deep' has little resemblance to the book written by Capt. Edward R. Beach, who served on the personal staff of General Omar Bradley during Bradley's tenure as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and as naval aide to President Dwight D. Eisenhower... The motion picture isn't particularly a great underwater action film, but with Lancaster and Gable in top form— and ably supported by Jack Warden, Don Rickles, Brad Dexter and Lancaster's frequent sidekick Nick Cravat—it remains an interesting study of submariners and their dedication to duty under fire in World War II... The hate-your-enemy attitude remains undiluted however...

Submarine movies are almost always fun to watch. Everyone crowded together, sweating, all that obsolete technology, sliding down ladders, hatches clanging shut, the popping rivet, the depth charges, the man left on deck as the sub plunges beneath the waves, the wisecracking crew, and the commands -- "Rig for silent running." "Rig for Depth Charge." "Crash Dive!" "Take her down to fifty feet." "Open outer doors one and two." "After torpedo room, report damage." "Come right to course one five zero." It's like going to mass.

"Run Silent, Run Deep" thankfully has no romantic side interest. The special effects are echt-1950s -- back projections, rather obvious model work. But it's fairly well done, for its kind. The major conflict is between Captain Gable (looking puffy-eyed, as if just coming down from battery acid) and Exec Lancaster, who was deprived of the command through direct intervention by Gable, who has his own agenda.

Gable's first boat was sunk in the Bungo Straits. Now he intends to disobey orders and take his new boat back to the same spot, kind of obsessed with revenging his lost shipmates. The crew come to think of him as just as mad as Captain Ahab following HIS obsession. Gable drills the crew over and over in order to get them to dive in exactly 32 seconds. (Thirty-seven won't do.) He does other odd things without explanation. He ignores a Japanese sub, ignores a convoy. He sinks a Momo destroyer with "a shot that isn't even in the books." The purpose of all this odd behavior is to sink the Akakaze, the destroyer that apparently got his last boat, as well as three or four others in the Bungo Straits. Let us simply say that in the end, Gable enters his house justified, or in this case his ocean.

There's a lot of tension aboard the boat, of course, what with the captain keeping his plans all to himself. The problem is that the story itself doesn't really make any sense. Here, presented in no particular order, are some questions that kept nagging at me.

1. Gable sinks the Momo destroyer with a down-the-throat shot as practice for pulling the same stunt with the Akakaze destroyer. "The Akakaze is no Momo," someone points out, "The Akakaze never misses." What's the difference between a Momo and an Akakaze? Why does one serve merely for target practice, while the other never misses? How can you tell one individual destroyer from another individual destroyer through a submarine's periscope? We're never told the answer.

2. Gable's plan involves attracting the destroyer, steaming on the surface as the destroyer approaches, firing at the sub, submerging in 32 seconds, then firing a head-on shot at the destroyer. Why thirty-two seconds? What's so great about 32 seconds? Why not dive five seconds earlier and let the process take 37 seconds? Answer: as far as we can tell, it makes no difference at all, except that shaving off the additional 5 seconds enhances the alienation of the crew from the captain. This is known as a "plot device."

3. The boat and the Akakaze finally meet, and the Akakaze turns head-on as planned, but the boat comes under air attack. At this point, Gable, alone on the bridge, hollers down the hatch, "We'll have to make this a surface attack." Why? Why doesn't he follow through with his original plan to submerge? The boat would be protected against air attack and the original plan could be followed without modification. (As it is, the surface attack fails.) Why does being attacked from the air compel a submarine to remain on the surface? Answer: Only Gable knows, and he took his secret with him.

4. After each destroyer attack -- whether the destroyer is sunk or not -- some mysterious morse code comes in on the radio. It turns out to be coming from a nearby Japanese submarine whose presence is unexpected. Why is the Japanese submarine betraying its presence by using its radio, since its effectiveness depends on its remaining hidden? Answer: They really ARE inscrutable?

5. Just after sinking a freighter and the Momo destroyer, Captain Gable avoids firing at a Japanese convoy they encounter because he doesn't want to give away his position. What's the point? He has just torpedoed and sunk two Japanese ships. The second ship, the Momo, had ample time to signal that he was under torpedo attack and that, therefore, there was an enemy submarine around. Answer: No excuse, sir.

6. At the end, after they have sunk the Akakaze, they hear radio signals that seem to come out of nowhere. A radioman asks, "What is that, sir. I can't make that out." Are they all stupid? The signals are in nice clear CW, although the message is just a jumble of random letters and numbers, nicely transmitted. Any competent operator would know that they were coming from an antenna that was close by. If you have a loud transmission coming from a nearby antenna in the middle of the ocean and you sweep the horizon and there are no surface ships, what conclusion is logically forced upon you? Answer: seagulls.

7. The crew has been driven nuts by all those practice dives designed to prune their time to submerge down to 32 seconds. At the end, with the Akakaze steaming head-on as planned, although they have plenty of time to dive, they take her in on the surface and launch torpedoes at the prearranged distance. The plan works and the Akakaze is blown to bits. What was the purpose of all those demanding practice dives? Why was the original plan discarded? Again, nobody knows.

Nick Cravatt, Lancaster's old circus buddy, is in this film too. He is even given a speaking part, mostly comic. He was better in those parts where, like Harpo, he was mute. His ingenuous overacting was endearing. Lancaster's performance is toned down. We don't get to see that mile-wide grin filled with gleaming ivory tombstones.

RUN SILENT RUN DEEP 1958

Burt Lancaster and Clark Gable headline this film about obsession set on a submarine in World War 2. Clark Gable plays a submarine Captain who lost his boat to a Japanese destroyer in the Bungo Strait area separating the Japanese islands of Kyushu and Shikoku. Gable has spent the year since at a desk in Pearl Harbor. Gable manages to wangle the command of a submarine coming to Pearl.

This causes hard feelings with the submarines second in command, Burt Lancaster. Lancaster had been in line to take over the boat. Lancaster asks for a transfer to another boat but is denied. He does not like it, but he will follow Gable's orders. Gable turns out to be a hard task master and has the crew drilling day in and day out. Gable wants the submarine to be able to dive and take a torpedo shot inside a set time.

The crew is less than amused with the constant drills and think Gable is a bit of a flake. They are sure Gable is also a coward when he refuses to attack a Japanese submarine they spot one night. That soon changes when they come on a Japanese tanker and its destroyer escort. The drills show quick results with the submarine sinking the tanker and its escort.

Gable now changes his operational orders and heads back to the Bungo Strait. He wants a bit of revenge against the destroyer that had sunk his earlier command. The destroyer has earned the nickname, "Bungo Pete" after sinking three more American submarines.

Needless to say this soon leads to a battle between "Bungo Pete" and the American sub. Gable, Lancaster and company manage to eliminate said Japanese destroyer. But it turns out that the Japanese have been playing a rigged deck. They have had a submarine of their own trailing the convoys. This sub has been knocking off the American subs. There is now a game of cat and mouse between the two vessels before the American's get in a well-placed torpedo.

Gable, who had been badly wounded in the fight, dies and is buried at sea as the Americans return to Pearl Harbor.

While it might seem a bit dated to some viewers, it does pack an emotional punch. The inter-play between the two leads is quite good with Lancaster in particular shining. Also in the mix cast wise, is, Brad Dexter, Nick Cravat, Jack Warden and Don Rickles in his big screen debut.

The director here is two time Oscar winner, Robert Wise. Wise keeps things moving along nicely with help from cinematographer, Russell Harlan. Harlan lensed such films as, A WALK IN THE SUN, RED RIVER, GUN CRAZY, THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE, WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION, HATARI, RIO BRAVO and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Adding to the film's mood is the deep rumbling score by Franz Waxman. Waxman was nominated for an Oscar, ten times, winning an even pair.

The writer of the novel, Edward L Beach was a highly decorated officer during WW2.

A film starring Burt Lancaster and Clark Gable as two sailors on a submarine.Gable is after revenge on the Japanese navy for sinking his previous submarine,whilst Lancaster is under Gables command something which annoys him.The sub does Marius exercises to become proficient at doing bow shots which is very difficult.Gable at first struggles to win the respect of the sub crew but by his deeds at the end of the movie he has gained respect from everyone.A good solid film with good performances,Lancaster was happy co starring with older stars like Gable and Gary Cooper at this stage in his career.This film is must for fans of world war 2 stories

After watching the great "Crimson Tide", I sought out to see more legendary submarine flicks. And while I was in Blockbuster, I saw "Run Silent, Run Deep" on the shelf and I remembered that movie being mentioned in "Crimson Tide" during the whole "submarine movie trivia" sequence on the bus. And the question that was asked was who the submarine commander in this movie was. And the guy answered "That guy with the ears and the mustache, Cary Grant." For those of you don't know what the answer was, it was really Clark Gable, and those massive ears and the thin 'stache were his trademarks throughout his career.

And once I picked up the DVD case, I showed it to my mother and she immediately saw the two actors on the front (Gable and Burt Lancaster) and told me how famous those two were. But the truth is, I didn't even know who those two guys were, obviously because of my young age at 17. But after I decided to rent it since it couldn't do any harm, my mother told me about the kind of acting legends that Gable and Lancaster were on the ride back home. But of course, it was a bunch of romance flicks that she told me about (Gone with the Wind, Elmer Gantry etc.), but I knew that if Gable and Lancaster were practically legends, and that this was a submarine film, I knew I might've started loving this. And strangely enough, I did. And I didn't even care for the fact that it was black and white, and the fact that it's 51 years old.

When it came to movies, I realized for the first time that my mother was right about Gable and Lancaster. Those two had real acting skill and were 2 of the best I've ever seen. But now in Hollywood we get too many male/female models who act and they have no talent. But I get to see what it was like in the old days when Hollywood cared about talent over money, fame and hotness.

Clark Gable is the submarine commander named P.J "Rich" Richardson. Rich is haunted by his memories of a Japanese battleship that destroyed his sub and his crew. For over a year, he dwells on that memory and wants vengeance more than anything. And then when a younger guy named James Bledsoe (Lancaster) heads a new sub that would be heading out into the Pacific to combat the Japanese, Rich abruptly takes command after convincing his superiors. And of course, Bledsoe isn't too happy about it but keeps his cool. And during the mission, Rich disobeys orders just to get the sub into the restricted areas which pushes the crew to planning on a mutiny, and causes tensions to rise between the two commanding officers (and I guess this is how Crimson Tide got that idea……).

The acting is excellent, thanks to Gable and Lancaster, we can feel the tension going on between these two. Oscar-winning acting in the 1950's was no different than it is today, and Gable and Lancaster could exhibit powerful human emotion especially when the 2 men clash over the safety and lives of the crew. And you're gonna find yourself siding with the both of them; you might side with Rich because of his quest for revenge even though he has to be doing the unethical to achieve his goal and Bledsoe just cares about the lives of the crew and even risked the sub being spotted when he ordered them to rise up to prevent a crew member from drowning. But by the end, the 2 men basically become each other when Rich realizes that revenge might not be worth it and when Bledsoe decides to go after the Japanese destroyer even when they're on their way home. Excellent character development to go along with the great story.

The action was, for its time, very well done. To be honest I expected much worse from the special effects, but you can still see what's going on with all the torpedoes and the subs underwater. And especially the explosions of the ships, while they were black and white, they still captured the grim reality of warfare on the ocean.

Also the thrills will make your heart pound like it did to mine and if the thrills were any more thrilling, I would've fainted. The scene at the end when the two subs face-off is among the best underwater battles I've seen in my life. The suspenseful part came when the fighter planes were dropping the bombs onto the sub underwater, and when one of the bombs hits the top of the sub and rolls over to explode and barely misses is when I nearly bit my fingernails off. And this was all perfectly edited and directed by the genius Robert Wise.

And another thing, that pin-up girl that the crew slaps on its back-side before battle is a total icon to me and it's hilarious. I wish that I had a poster like that at home, haha, but that's just the boy in me talking. And I think that was even referenced in "Die Hard" when John McClane pats a similar poster of a girl on the wall, and given Die Hard's reputation, that has clearly gotta be saying a lot about "RSRD". And I'm gonna remember that part forever because it displays the crew's humanity as men.

I'll admit that I said before that "Crimson Tide" was my favorite submarine movie of all time, but now I'm on the fence, because "Crimson Tide" took the idea of two submarine superiors clashing, from RSRD. And I'm not sure when I'm gonna decide. But anyway, this is a classic in its own right with two legendary actors and a great story about vengeance set in World War II.

Robert Wise's 'Run Silent, Run Deep' was a moderate commercial success upon its release in 1958. In the years since then its reputation has grown and its influence upon other films of the submarine sub-genre are clear, such as in Tony Scott's excellent 'Crimson Tide' from 1995. Both films, for instance, share a similar story line with an Executive Officer and Captain butting heads and the former taking command of the boat.

I wouldn't say that Robert Wise's direction is particularly visually dynamic like, say, Orson Welles or John Ford, but Wise always knew where to put the camera and coached great performances out of his actors. Gable and Lancaster are superb in this, especially Gable, whose Captain Ahab-esque character is the most interesting one in the picture.

While I wouldn't say that 'Run Silent, Run Deep' is the greatest of all submarine pictures (that goes to 'Das Boot'), I would say it's certainly one of the best. Wise himself was such a versatile director that he made great films in nearly every genre like 'The Haunting' in the horror genre, 'West Side Story' and 'The Sound of Music' in the musical genre, 'The Day The Earth Stood Still' in the sci-fi genre, and 'The Sand Pebbles' in the epic war genre. Like those films, 'Run Silent, Run Deep' stands out as an impressive addition to a sub-genre with few great films over the decades.