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Monday, May 10, 2021

SUBMARINE PATROL (1938)

When your next six films are STAGECOACH, YOUNG MR. LINCOLN, DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, THE LONG VOYAGE HOME and HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY* (1939 - 1941), no surprise to see John Ford’s comic-skewing programmer about the wackiest wooden sub chaser in the WWI Navy snubbed.  Unjustly so.  20th/Fox production chief Darryl F. Zanuck hoped to pump this into an A-pic, a star-making vehicle for Richard Greene & debuting Nancy Kelly, sweethearts separated by class & boat schedules.  But Ford knew a clunker when he saw one, and emphasized/embellished all possible comic opportunities as an idle crew on a forgotten vessel is whipped into (ship)shape by Lieutenant Preston Foster, hoping to salvage his career with a daring mission.  Happily, Ford’s comic instincts are firing on all cylinders (less alcohol-based gags than usual which helps), with his stock company of character actors still young enough to pull off the hijinks.  (LINK: It shows what Ford was trying to do in his unhappy, if wildly popular, MISTER ROBERTS.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/08/mister-roberts-1955.html)  With its landlocked look and casually handled model work in soundstage water tanks, only the last act asks to be taken even semi-seriously.  And while those dramatics don't quite come off, they do provide George Bancroft as Kelly’s suspicious freight-captain dad with a chance to briefly show some stunning silent film acting technique with a brilliant dialogue-free display of reaction shots as he works the ship’s engine room during an attack and belatedly bonds with future son-in-law Greene.  Then, back to lighter things for a swift wrap-up.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Eagle-eyed film mavens will note TOBACCO ROAD/’41 left off this list.

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