The Sea Chase (1955)

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

One of these true pieces of studio Hollywood hokum, although there are some good location shots. Just saw the entire film for the first time on TCM. On HD with wide screen it's not bad, great color. Virtually none of the crew try to even mimic any sort of German accent. On the crew a couple of familiar faces from the 60's, Claude Akins, Jim Arness (Gunsmoke)and Alan Hale (Skipper, Gilligan's Island) plus Tab Hunter. Not the Duke's best performance, not his worst. Lana Turner looks hot and somehow, on this tramp steamer in the middle of the S. Pacific her her is and she always has makeup on. No real chemistry between the 2 of them in this though.

Decent war film starring John Wayne, Lana Turner, Lyle Bettger, Tab Hunter, James Arness, John Qualen and Paul Fix. Wayne plays a German ship captain, Karl Ehrlich, who, because he's not a Nazi and opposed to them, has been stripped of his command and given an old ship, the Ergenstrasse. Now, short on fuel and food, he's trying to get it from Australia back to Germany. Before they leave, he's asked by the German consulate to take an intelligence agent, who is about to be arrested, on the ship. It's a woman, Elsa Keller, the fiancé of his old Royal Navy friend (David Farrar). She was given the assignment of marrying into a British Navy family.Once on the ship, though initially they dislike each other, Ehrlich and Elsa are drawn to one another, and Chief Officer Kirchner (David Farrar) who is on board ship under protest, wants her for himself. When Kirchner is sent aboard to get supplies in Auckland, he kills four unarmed fishermen. He tells Ehrlich that the men are fine and well-provisioned. Meanwhile, the Royal Navy intends to capture the ship and hang everyone on it for the murders. On the Ergenstrasse, Ehrlich, determined to get home, drives his men hard as they break up wood for fuel.John Farrow, an experienced director, oversaw this film but apparently he was distracted. Okay, no one on the German ship and no other Germans speak with a German accent because obviously, they would be speaking German, not English with a German accent. Perfectly correct. But why, oh why, did John Wayne's butchering of "auf wiedersehen" get past the director? It was the only German he spoke! Instead of saying wiedersehen with a soft "v", he pronounces the beginning of the word like he's saying wiener. It is such a glaring error and sounds ridiculous. Later, when Ehrlich is writing a report, the camera focuses on what he is writing, and it is clearly written "Ehrlick" and not "Ehrlich." Sloppy.Wayne is masculine and authoritative as Ehrlich, and the soft-spoken, sexy Lana is appealing as Elsa. Wayne here is about 48, and Turner 35 (according to Maureen O'Hara, Turner took a year off and was actually born in 1920). They're both too old for their roles.A young Tab Hunter has a small role in this, as does a blond James Arness. "The Sea Chase" looks to be a big-budget color film for the wide screen. If only someone had paid attention to the dailies.

This was the first of 11 films I have scheduled to commemorate John Wayne’s 100th Anniversary; actually, it’s one of his titles that keep cropping up on Italian TV – but I somehow never got to catch it over the years.It’s also one of the star’s handful of incongruous 1950s pictures – where he tried to broaden his range but generally came off as ridiculous (for instance, THE CONQUEROR [1956] and THE BARBARIAN AND THE GEISHA [1958; another film I’ve missed out on more than I care to remember!]). This one sees him as the tough anti-Nazi skipper of a German tramp steamer in the days immediately prior to WWII, engaged in a voyage from Sydney, Australia en route to the Fatherland – with the British navy in hot pursuit. One of the English officers is Wayne’s pal David Farrar – who’s set to marry glamorous agent(!) Lana Turner, a passenger on Wayne’s rundown ship! Still, this melodramatic situation renders the chase dull rather exciting – though William H. Clothier’s pleasing Widescreen cinematography offers some form of compensation (as does the supporting cast, littered with regulars from Wayne’s films such as Claude Akins, James Arness and Paul Fix, but also featuring two popular young actors of the day, Tab Hunter and Dick Davalos).In addition to the strain of dodging his pursuers, Wayne is beset with problems on board his own vessel: having fallen for Turner himself, he must contend with his slimy lieutenant Lyle Bettger who has also set his eyes on her; besides, Bettger is responsible for the cold-blooded murder of a group of fishermen which has resulted in the branding of Wayne as a criminal (when Bettger is confronted with the truth in Wayne’s cabin, the latter dismisses him by asking the former to “crawl out” of his sight); Arness, too, decides to contend Wayne’s overly strict leadership but, by the end of the film, they’ve earned one another’s respect. The lengthy film rises to a good (and surprisingly) downbeat climax – but it’s fatally compromised by the mismatched (and miscast) stars. Incidentally, Wayne was in pain during much of the filming due to an ear infection developed after he went scuba-diving; all the star’s subsequent scenes were shot showing just one side of his face.By the way, many seafaring WWII films were made during this era including three which, similar to this one, took the form of a long-running chase – namely THE ENEMY BELOW (1957), RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP (1958) and SINK THE BISMARCK! (1960).

My John Wayne Marathon continues.This is one of those Wayne movies that might fit in on a double bill with Chained Heat. It is not one of his better efforts, but it is still watchable.John Wayne as a German might be a stretch, but it still features a strong woman part by Lana Turner, and a good supporting cast, including Paul Fix (Giant) as a former soldier turned cook, Lyle Bettger (The Lone Ranger) as a borderline psycho first officer, and James Arness (Gunsmoke) as a crewman frustrated to the point of near-mutiny.It's a pretty good yarn about sailors wanting to go home.