Operation Pacific (1951)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Strong and Moving!

Good concept, poorly executed.

Absolutely Fantastic

. . . actor John Wayne as "Duke" commands his ex-wife while appropriating a random, unrelated orphan newborn from the local hospital to close OPERATION PACIFIC. So while this ready-made Daddy is busy bringing down enemy destroyers, planes, subs, tankers, and aircraft carriers, Junior can look forward to about six days annually with dear old Pops. Speaking of "Pop," goes the weasel, if you can suffer a spoiler about OP's Captain Ahab moment. And talk about product DIS-placement. Near the middle of this flick, producer Warner Bros. asserts that their 1942 Jack Benny film titled GEORGE WASHINGTON SLEPT HERE is so boring that it will doom any submarine below the surface of the seas on the weekly movie night. It's a wonder that OP's lead actress Patricia Neal didn't wind up with Prince Albert in a can by the end of 1951. First she got Michael Rennie from a saucer during THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, and then "the Duke" from a sardine tin here. Klaatu Barada Nikto, anyone?

Boring and late movie of propaganda. No tension, no drama, no realism. And Wayne not bad, but certainly not his best acting. A waste of time.If you're looking for a good naval movie, this definitely is not. I had to make efforts to not skip non-battle scenes. Only to find bad action scenes, with no tension. A clearly epic script for propaganda purposes. But poorly conducted. Other older Subs movies are much better than this. The special effects are not bad, but the timing is disastrous, and moreover are well known.This movie is far from "Run Silent, Run Deep", "Destination Tokyo", "The Enemy Below", "Das Boot", even "Operation Petticoat" is better. It is closer to an anodyne documentary.

The start of this movie starts out with a tragedy when the submarine commander, played very well if shortly, Ward Bond, is trapped on deck when the sub comes under attack. John Wayne is the executive officer and orders the submarine to dive leaving Ward Bond to die. The crew resents his actions and show it in certain ways. In the early part of the war the torpedoes were well known to have problems detonating when they hit a target. John Wayne's character, Gifford, is tasked with solving this problem. He does and the enemy ships start blowing up. Gifford also runs into his ex-wife, played by Patricia Neal. Sparks fly again and they appear to hook up again. Gifford and the sub go to sea again and of course are successful attacking the enemy.

This movie is an excellent submarine movie that combines exciting and generally believable action along with a decent back-story. John Wayne is the second in command on a sub and he's become reacquainted with his ex-wife, Patricia Neal. His trying to win her back and his difficulties with expressing himself is handled more credibly than most Wayne characters, as he is vulnerable and more 3-dimensional than his usual self. As for the action itself, the movie spends a lot of time on a lesser-known aspect of US sub warfare--the fact that our torpedoes at the beginning of the war were often duds. And the subplot involving the death of the commander is interesting as well. About the only down-side is that, at times, the sub does rather extraordinary things that no sub ever did--such as sinking 3 ships in mere minutes--including a sub, destroyer and an aircraft carrier! With victories like that, we could have won the war in just a few weeks. BUT, considering this is counter-balanced with dud torpedoes and the destruction of a fellow sub, this is a little more realistic than the standard fare.PS--a cute part of the film is when the crew is watching the movie DESTINATION TOKYO (with Cary Grant). One of the crewmen comments that this is a great movie but it was awfully short on realism. Ha.