Meant to be explosive (literally explosive) as new, powerful underwater bomb material undergoes rigorous testing off an isolated Scottish isle, this little film from the Brothers Boulting (John & Roy) is seriously underwhelming. Taken from a play, and feeling like it in the extended barracks scenes, the gimmick is that American Navy scientist Gene Kelly (in a rare straight dramatic part) is brought in after a series of failures to fix the problem before the next pair of brave British ‘volunteer’ testers get blown to pieces. John Justin is there to stick up for English Naval research, along with a handful of Her Majesty’s sailors adding comic relief and competitive spirit against the pair of USN seabees Kelly brings along with him. Kelly & Justin are fine as a pair of wary officers who finally start working together, and it’s a treat to find Bernard Lee (‘M’ in early James Bond pics) go proletariat as a tough navy ‘lifer.’ But the rest of the seamen are a dreary, cliché-ridden lot. So’s the pic.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: For tough, manly men working thru submarine trials & personality clashes, go for Robert Wise’s RUN SILENT RUN DEEP/’58, with tip-top perfs from Clark Gable & Burt Lancaster.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Composer Miklós Rózsa adds some much needed tension with his score, but also gets stuck underlining comic bits with ‘funny’ music cues he couldn’t have been happy about.
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