“Submarine Patrol”

Northern Advocate, 22 July 1939, Page 3 (Supplement)

“Submarine Patrol”

Mention the term “Navy picture” and most movie-goers immediately think of super-dreadnoughts heaving in the ocean swells to the strains of “Anchors Aweigh.” They think of gold braid and hallowed tradition and the splendid young men of the Naval Academy.

All this is very fine; it is good dramatic material. But it is probably neither as fine nor as dramatic as the great story out of which 20th CenturyFox has fashioned “Submarine Patrol.” Because “Submarine Patrol,” while based on the most heroic chapter in the whole history of naval warfare, is

no more a typical “Navy picture” than' “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” was a typical musical. It is Director Joan Ford who says so, the man who rrsJ') “The Informer,” “Wee Willie Winkle' and “The Hurricane,” and who climaxes his awardwinning career with this new picture. According to Ford, “Submarine Patrol” tells the incredible story, for some strange reason overlooked until now, that has lain neglected in the

> Navy’s archives for some twenty-odd years. It is the story of America’s wartime “Splinter Fleet”—those tiny, oft-ridiculed, wooden patrol boats, designed to clear the U-boat infested lanes of the Atlantic, and some of them-manned by the sorriest crews of civilian odds and ends ever to board a fighting ship. From every walk of life they came—• taxi-drivers, social' registerites, soda jerkers, farmers—expecting a soft berth aboard the sub ■ chasers, for no one thought the “Splinter Fleet” would see any real action. And then, suddenly, they were steaming out of Brooklyn Navy Yard under secret orders, to face an ordeal by fire such as men seldom encounter even in wartime—and men they proved them- 1 -, selves to be! Darryl F. Zanuck, in charge of production, is said to have given considerable thought to the selection of his cast. With one or two exceptions, he deliberately chose players whose names are seldom seen alone in lights, yet their dramatic characterisations, under Ford’s masterful direction, are what give “Submarine Patrol” its real punch, according to preview critics. Handsome Richard Greene is seen in the role of the young social registerite who joins up as chief engineer, and who promptly falls in love with Nancy Kelly (a promising newcomer to films), whose father is the skipper of a munitions freighter which Greene’s ship is assigned to convoy across the Atlantic. Others in the cast are: Preston Foster, George Bancroft, Slim Summerville, John Carradine, Joan Valerie, Henry Armetta, Warren Hymer, Douglas Foivley, J. Farrell MacDonald and Maxie Rosenbloom. Based on a book by Ray Milholland, the screen play was written by Rian James, Darrell Ware and Jack Yellen. Gene Markey was associate producer.