BEFORE: This is it, I've reached the end of the Cary Grant chain, after three weeks the (M)Archie Madness Tournament is over, and no matter how I place the Final Four into brackets, I think there's a clear winner, unless today's film is, like, the best war picture ever. I regret that I didn't get to every major Cary Grant film - the most notable omissions are probably "Topper", "Gunga Din" and "Operation Petticoat", and that last one would have probably fit in nicely after "Kiss Them For Me", but I don't have a copy, and I'm not willing to switch to getting movies online just for that one. That's a constant problem for me, of course, that nearly every film I watch has an annoying tendency to suggest another one. Or two. Or three.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Midway" (Movie #1,861)
THE PLOT: In order to provide information for the first air raid over Tokyo, a U.S. submarine sneaks into Tokyo Bay and places a spy team ashore.
AFTER: This is one of those serviceable military films, filled with the familiar stereotypes like the green recruit, the grizzled veteran and the ladies man, who are all ethnically diverse (for white people, anyway) and have to put aside their differences to come together and survive during wartime. And they all serve on a submarine that's depicted by a scale model that always looks like it's 10 feet below the surface and 10 feet above the ocean floor, even when the plot states it's supposed to be 100 fathoms deep, and well clear of the bottom.
Perhaps it suffers from its release date of 1943 - maybe it was rushed into production to get U.S. audiences excited about World War II, or to take advantage of current events. As a result, I guess there was not enough time to learn how a submarine actually works - or perhaps the film couldn't be too realistic, or it would be the equivalent of giving away confidential technical information, much like how a film today can't really describe how to build a homemade bomb.
I'm guessing there are certain people who would watch this and be able to point out a whole host of technical mistakes, like the fact there's no such thing as a "fathomometer", or that a submarine probably has a sonar read-out that doesn't just look like an oscilloscope, or a way of displaying its pitch that's more complicated than a level you can buy at a hardware store.
But hey, why let facts get in the way of a good war picture? Or military procedure, for that matter. The ship's commander opens the "confidential" mission specs, and within minutes the whole crew is buying kimonos and planning for a night on the town in Tokyo. There's not a man aboard who seems able to comprehend what "need to know" information means.
NITPICK POINT: A submarine with so many men aboard has only a pharmacist, and not a real doctor? That seems unwise, and unlikely. Ehh, I'm sure that no medical emergency will happen at perhaps the worst possible time.
That's going to wrap things up for Mr. Cary Grant - and the winner of the big tournament? "Charade", getting a 7 on my scale, and no other Cary Grant film in the chain came close. OK, you can go watch some basketball now.
Also starring John Garfield (last seen in "The Postman Always Rings Twice"), Alan Hale (last seen in "It Happened One Night"), John Ridgely (last seen in "Arsenic and Old Lace"), Dane Clark, Warner Anderson, William Prince, Robert Hutton, Tom Tully, Peter Whitney, Warren Douglas, John Forsythe (last seen in "Topaz").
RATING: 4 out of 10 depth charges
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