There's not much to be said about "Atomic Submarine." It's an inexpensive SF thriller about a nuclear-powered submarine that's sent to the North Pole to find out why ships have been disappearing so often in northern latitudes. The Tiger Shark, with Dick Foran as the commanding officer and Arthur Franz as his exec, finds out. It's a giant undersea UFO. They ram it and are locked with it. A party is sent out in a kind of diving bell to free the sub. The men enter the beastly thing and find it contains a rather large and repellent monster who intends to kidnap them and the colonize Earth -- and so on. The monster is dispatched.
I remember seeing this years ago on TV but I could only remember one scene. Arthur Franz is standing in the doorway of the UFO, staring goggle-eyed at the monster within, which resembles a hairy octopus with one huge Cyclops-like eyeball. "At last we meet, face to face," says the monster. "That's a face?" replies Franz.
The plot's all over the place. It's festooned with icons of the genre. There's atomic power. An undersea mystery. A UFO. A repugnant monster. A plan to colonize earth. A sea-to-air missile. An argument between Lieutenant Commander Franz and the civilian Peacenik aboard. The Peacenik argues that peace is better than war or something like that. A couple of the men give their lives bravely.
It's hard to imagine that this entire film cost more than would be spent on a TV episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. The special effects are perfunctory. I would have to see proof that there was more than one take of each shot before I believed it. The Tiger Shark seems to have a crew of about three men.
One of the men is Bob Steele, who had a successful matinée series in the movies during the 1940s. He has one expression -- a scowl. When he cracks jokes with the other two crew members, he scowls. Dick Foran floats through his part weightlessly. It's hard to believe that he was a cowboy in an Abbott and Costello movie who introduced a pretty and tuneful pop song, "I'll Remember April." Arthur Franz, another New Jersey kid, probably does the best acting job. He's at least identifiable as a seasoned professional. (He wasn't bad in the original "The Sniper.") Many of the others, notably Brett Halsey as the Peacenik, give performances that you or I could beat. Halsey, blandly handsome, does nothing but pout. Throughout. Oh, there's Tom Conway as a British scientist on the sub, too. He looks pretty good, considering that booze had made a considerable inroad into his life space by this time. He was soon to become so abjectly alcoholic that his brother, George Sanders, cut off communications with him, the cad. And there's still another scientist, a Russian guy. The best thing about him is his accent. When he tries to pronounce "wonderful", it comes out "VON-dair-fool." I guess they didn't have enough of a budget to hire a technical adviser because their naval protocol is sometimes off base in the most elementary of ways. The captain, Foran, gives an order to his subordinate, the executive officer, Franz. And Franz says, "Very well." He's not supposed to say that. A subordinate, when addressed by a superior officer, says, "Aye aye." It's only when a subordinate reports information to a superior, that the superior replies, "Very well." None of that is important in the context of this sublimely shoddy production. I kind of enjoyed it for its tattiness. But, even with a minuscule budget, a good director can do better. I doubt that "The Thing From Another World" had much of a budget either, but it's light years ahead of this.
I remember seeing this years ago on TV but I could only remember one scene. Arthur Franz is standing in the doorway of the UFO, staring goggle-eyed at the monster within, which resembles a hairy octopus with one huge Cyclops-like eyeball. "At last we meet, face to face," says the monster. "That's a face?" replies Franz.
The plot's all over the place. It's festooned with icons of the genre. There's atomic power. An undersea mystery. A UFO. A repugnant monster. A plan to colonize earth. A sea-to-air missile. An argument between Lieutenant Commander Franz and the civilian Peacenik aboard. The Peacenik argues that peace is better than war or something like that. A couple of the men give their lives bravely.
It's hard to imagine that this entire film cost more than would be spent on a TV episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. The special effects are perfunctory. I would have to see proof that there was more than one take of each shot before I believed it. The Tiger Shark seems to have a crew of about three men.
One of the men is Bob Steele, who had a successful matinée series in the movies during the 1940s. He has one expression -- a scowl. When he cracks jokes with the other two crew members, he scowls. Dick Foran floats through his part weightlessly. It's hard to believe that he was a cowboy in an Abbott and Costello movie who introduced a pretty and tuneful pop song, "I'll Remember April." Arthur Franz, another New Jersey kid, probably does the best acting job. He's at least identifiable as a seasoned professional. (He wasn't bad in the original "The Sniper.") Many of the others, notably Brett Halsey as the Peacenik, give performances that you or I could beat. Halsey, blandly handsome, does nothing but pout. Throughout. Oh, there's Tom Conway as a British scientist on the sub, too. He looks pretty good, considering that booze had made a considerable inroad into his life space by this time. He was soon to become so abjectly alcoholic that his brother, George Sanders, cut off communications with him, the cad. And there's still another scientist, a Russian guy. The best thing about him is his accent. When he tries to pronounce "wonderful", it comes out "VON-dair-fool." I guess they didn't have enough of a budget to hire a technical adviser because their naval protocol is sometimes off base in the most elementary of ways. The captain, Foran, gives an order to his subordinate, the executive officer, Franz. And Franz says, "Very well." He's not supposed to say that. A subordinate, when addressed by a superior officer, says, "Aye aye." It's only when a subordinate reports information to a superior, that the superior replies, "Very well." None of that is important in the context of this sublimely shoddy production. I kind of enjoyed it for its tattiness. But, even with a minuscule budget, a good director can do better. I doubt that "The Thing From Another World" had much of a budget either, but it's light years ahead of this.