Name: Submarine Raider
Genre: Drama, War
Released: 1942-06-04
Duration: 64 min
Rating: 5.7
Cast: John Howard, Marguerite Chapman, Bruce Bennett, Warren Ashe, Forrest Tucker

Submarine Raider

A Girl On A Sub Plays Desperate Hide-And-Seek With The Japs... To Save PEARL HARBOR!

On December 6, 1941, Captain Yamanada of the Japanese aircraft carrier "Hiranamu", orders full steam ahead for Pearl Harbor. His ship encounters and sinks an American yacht and the single survivor, Sue Curry, is rescued by an American submarine, the "Sea Serpent", commanded by Commander Chris Warren. He hears her story and attempts to radio a warning to Pearl Harbor. Yamanada, hearing the signals, orders the airlines jammed, and then sends his son into the air to sink the sub. The attack fails, after the sub makes a crash dive, but they fail in their warning attempts. The next morning, December 7th, the men on the sub hear the story of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and devise a desperate plan to sink the Japanese carrier by letting the carrier know their position. The carrier comes in search of the submarine.

DramaWar

DirectorsLew Landers, Budd Boetticher

WriterAubrey Wisberg

StatusReleased

LanguageEnglish

Release DateJune 4, 1942

Runtime1h 4m

CinemaSerf

@Geronimo1967

April 16, 20234/10

For some reason an American causing yacht finds itself in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and in the way of a Japanese aircraft carrier. The bigger ship uses it as target practice leaving only "Sue" (Marguerite Chapman) as the sole survivor. Fortunately, she manages to get of an SOS and that was picked up by a nearby American submarine which races to her rescue. The submariners are puzzled by their inability to send or receive signals until they hear of the terrible news that Pearl Harbour has been devastated by a sudden, sneaky, attack. Now, complete with their damsel in distress, they concoct quite a cunning plan to lure the offending carrier to them and sink three fish into it! It's frequently interspersed with actuality and had the editing been a bit better, that might have helped out - but it isn't and coupled with a Japanese captain who was about as menacing as "Mr. Wong" and Peter Sellers' love child - on a bad day, the whole thing really just falls well short. Sure, it was made in 1942 and is a pretty shameless piece of propaganda but I'm not sure these are excuses enough for this rather cheap and cheerfully thrown together exercise in just about everything mediocre film-making has to offer. It doubtlessly made the audience feel a bit better at a very difficult time, but it has little to recommend it now.