Purely Joyful Movie!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This exciting film contains cold war heroics , non stop excitement , and full of tension and intrigue . Pure entertainment from Fuller , it is set during the Cold War , a privately-financed scientist Prof. Montel (Victor Francen , though Charles Boyer was originally cast for this role) , his assistant (Bella Darvi) and colleagues hire an ex-Navy officer (Richard Widmark) to conduct an Alaskan submarine (Sub used was WW2 ex Japanese sub) expedition (including familiar faces , as sailors appear the followings : Cameron Mitchell , David Wayne and Gene Evans who helped Bella Darvi with her dialogue) in order to prevent a Red Chinese anti-American battle , as well as a deviously plotted plan that could trigger WW3 . As they fit a Japanese submarine to lead them to Arctic Circle . Along the way , they are pursued by a Chinese submarine , stalking each other , and intent on ramming the other .The intriguing premise gets to satisfy completely , as it has breathtaking moments , including an explosive climax and as when two submarines stalk each other through the depths . It mixes a twisted tale with intrigue and schoolboy science-fiction about a scheme that may lead to World War III . This sometimes little objective film lacks a sense of definitive character undermining its important message . This picture is more a submarine movie than a Warlike or Cold war film . The scene from the attack on the first island was taken from the movie ¨Crash Dive¨ (1943) , particularly the ammo exploding in the depot and the burning fuel cascading over the short cliff into the sea . Nice acting by Richard Widmark as an ex-Navy officer assigned to a dangerous mission : to find a secret Chinese atomic island base . Victor Francen plays well the obstinate scientific who designs the risked operation to prevent a Communist plot . And the gorgeous Bella Darvi , this marked the feature film debut of Darryl F. Zanuck's muse Bella Darvi, whose stage surname was a combination of the first names of Zanuck and his wife Virginia . Darvi became a 50s symbol for one of the many movie "Cinderellas" playing ¨Sinuhe the Egyptian¨ , ¨The racers¨ and whose bright and beautiful Hollywood fairy tale would come crashing down, ending in bitterness and tragedy . Bella finally committed suicide in 1971 after turning on the gas stove in her apartment, she was only 42. The movie displays a colorful cinematography in CinemaScope by Joseph MacDonald . This was Twentieth Century-Fox's fifth CinemaScope production . Thrilling and stirring musical score by the prolific Alfred Newman . In this picture Samuel Fuller proved his talent of vision and intelligence . Fuller being especially known as filmmaker of such exploitation films as ¨Shock corridor¨ and ¨The naked kiss¨ . Fuller made various Western as ¨I shot Jesse James(49)¨, ¨The baron of Arizona (50)¨, ¨Run of the arrow¨ (56) , ¨Forty guns(58)¨, and ¨The meanest men in the West (76)¨ , but his most fluid and strongest work lies in his war films as ¨Steel helmet(51)¨ , ¨Fixed bayonets(52)¨, ¨Hell and high water (55)¨, ¨China gate (57)¨ , ¨Merrill's Marauders (62)¨ and ¨The Big Red One (80)¨. Being his best films : ¨Pick up on South Street¨(53) , ¨Underworld Usa¨(60) and ¨White Dog¨(82) . Rating : Better than average . Worthwhile watching .

An instant keeper in my wall-sized video cabinet, Sam Fuller's ludicrous, comic-book Hell and High Water tells the story of a group of "concerned scientists" (the same ditzes who fuss about dolphin health and what kind of goo gets squirted on your popcorn) who hire an ex-submariner to captain a used submarine to the Arctic to find out if the "Reds" are building a nuke.It's pure, escapist silliness, with Richard Widmark doing his tried-and-true dyspepsia routine, and a boatload of greasy pig-boaters (with two scientists--old guy and young babe). On the way, there's an absurd battle with a Chicom sub, various shootouts on commie islands, and the weirdest case of 1950s sexual assault I've ever seen (the babe scientist gets "mashed" by a sailor, then the skipper cleans her up by trying to rub grease off her chest (Skipper, the mash-prints are on her face, not her cleavage!).It's neither intended to be a comedy, nor a serious Cold War adventure. If you take any part of HAHW seriously, you'll miss the point of the movie, which is . . .Um. Entertainment.

I thought the movie was good for it's era. Much better than some of the other fiction movies of it's time. The submarine scenes were very good. Especially the detail of water trickling down the periscope cylinder when they were submerged.I too wondered where they were disposing of the buckets of water when they were supposed to be running silent. Again the scene was out of sequence.Also the scene where Richard yells periscope up to look for the enemy sub, and they are surfacing. I thought it looked funny seeing the sub on top of the water and Richard is looking out the periscope.Again good movie for it's time.

Nobody ever claimed Samuel Fuller was an artist, especially not Fuller himself. He was to movies the same thing he was to newspapers, a cigar-chomping primitive. This, along with Fixed Bayonets and Pickup on South Street, is among his best movies. It's his usual stuff -- big closeups, rudimentary dialogue and character -- souped up by a larger budget than usual. A lot of it went for special effects. The Big Boom of the atomic bomb, still something of a fearful novelty in those days. And, for the first time in my memory, a war movie delineates the trajectory of tracer bullets. (Only it's hard to see on the small screen.)The story is simple enough. A bunch of mercenaries of varied backgrounds is hired to man a submarine and gather intelligence and they undergo the usual dangers, except that there are no depth charges. There is a crude and horny seaman who is the source of some laughs. There is one of those non-English speakers (a Chinese guy) who sings a traditional American song by Cole Porter and mixes it up with a lot of slang. There is the egghead that is usually found in a Howard Hawks movie. There is the love interest, a discovery of the producer and his wife, who is named Bella Darvi (DAR Daryll, and VI = Virginia). She wound up addicted to gambling and her career was practically nonexistent. Our sub rams and sinks a Chinese sub. (Isn't that against some kind of law?) Everybody gets on deck and shoots at a passing airplane, to good effect. The professor loses a thumb in a horrific scene. In another awful scene, the slangy Chinese guy gets his brains beaten out. I don't know, but I kind of enjoy it. Nice technicolor, good battle scenes, and Richard Widmark is always dependable if not necessarily memorable. Sam Fuller had absolutely no aspirations and he lives up to them here.