Hellcats of the Navy (1957)

best movie i've ever seen.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The first must-see film of the year.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

I watched this mainly as a curiosity because of the pairing of Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis. As I understand it, this was the only movie they ever made together. I really don't know much about either of them as actors. To me, they're the former president and first lady of the United States, and I don't really recall having seen either of them in any other movie. This was one of Reagan's last movies before he went into television and then politics. I've heard a lot of jokes around Reagan's acting career - but based on this I'd say those have more to do with people not liking his presidency than his acting. I can understand why his career was in "B" movies. He wasn't great in this, but he wasn't bad either.The movie was a bit formulaic. Reagan played Captain Abbott - a submarine commander in the Pacific in World War II. As the movie opens he has to make a decision that results in the death of a crewman. Coincidentally, that crewman was involved romantically with a nurse named Helen (Davis) - who had previously been involved with Abbott. This set up tension between Abbott and his executive officer, Landon (Arthur Franz) who believed Abbott had been influenced by jealousy.The movie wasn't bad. There were a few suspenseful scenes as Abbott's sub either attacked or was being attacked by Japanese vessels. I thought it strange that, given the tension and distrust between them, the US Navy would keep Abbott and Landon together, and the whole thing came down to a predictably happy ending for all.I'd say this movie was OK, as was Reagan's performance. I may have watched it out of curiosity because of Reagan and Davis, but having watched it what really strikes me as interesting was the opening prologue by Admiral Chester Nimitz, who clearly thought that the story of Pacific submariners needed to be told. (6/10)

Where do I start. Hellcats was the name for naval aircraft the F6F Grumman not submarines.They were Gatos. The submarine goes from a normal sized tube for a Gato class sub to a tube large enough to hold a 10' ceiling. Ronald Reagan's acting was as stiff as it gets. The dialog between him and Nancy Davis was as contrived as it gets. The dialog in general sounded like it was a Mark 7 production. There was a scene where a Japanese sub was firing its deck gun while the muzzle of the deck gun was still moving. Miraculous gunners they were because that shot and every other hit target. There were enrichment shots in the film that looked more like U boats than Gatos. The important thing is this movie ruined Ronald Reagan's film career. From this movie came TV and a B movie or two(made for big and little screens) and finally life in the desert as narrator of "Death Valley Days".

I'm sure the tactics used in this movie bar little on how things really went down, but the movie OK, or a solid "5".The story was decent and actually kept this thing moving along, action was good for a sub pick, acting was what you would expect from the cast. Only drawback was, like I said, the tactics and equipment used. PT boats as Japanese fast attack ships is one example. Like someone else mentioned, if Capt. Reagan was a commander of a sub in real life, he would've been fired or possible shot for the why he exposed his ship to the enemy. Which oddly enough was how the movie started when he saved his ship instead of one of his crew.I'm sure if Ron and Nancy weren't in it, it would've long ago been forgotten and rated a couple stars lower. But they are in it, and which makes it worth while to give it a view once, plus Fleet Admial Nimitz has a cameo!

I won't waste your time or mine with a lengthy description of this extremely poor movie. The fact that Ronald Reagan is in it certainly doesn't help. If the tactics portrayed by the U.S. Submarine Service in this motion picture were accurate we might all be speaking Japanese right now. The fictitious submarine is constantly in trouble. Especially poor are the models used to depict the USS Starfish underwater. Most of them must have been purchased the daybefore at a five and ten store in Burbank or Glendale, within a fewminutes or a few blocks of the studio. A total waste of film. If someone gave me a DVD of this I would immediately crack it into several hundred pieces.