Film Summary DCCXLVIII (Submarine Seahawk)

 


The Seahawk is patrolling the Pacific Ocean during World War II. It spends a great deal of its time sinking Japanese vessels. 
Mainly Supply ships, oil tankers and anything that would be considered B grade military targets. Nothing juicy like a destroyer or an aircraft carrier. 
But all the same the crew seems relatively happy being able to increase their kill count with every subsequent ship they shoot down. 
The boys have this weird kind of Hangman game in where they remove articles of clothing from a oversized girl's doll until the things Stark naked. 
I guess spending several weeks (if not several months) on a sub would make one go a little weird in the head too. 
For some reason there's this dorky guy who kind of remind me of Don Knox and he's supposed to be the geeky newcomer who everybody else has to ''break in'' and make a ''real'' man. 
He's got a girlfriend back home and everybody knows about her. Yet they still want him to hook up with this random girl once they get back on dryland. 
He also doesn't drink which is an atrocious crime to all the sailors. Personally I'd say they should mind their own darn business, but what the heck do I know about sea travel.

The Seahawk is called back to Pearl Harbor and it's men are given a little bit of shore leave while certain high up officers are rearranged in their positions. 
The Captain of the vessel is now being promoted to a desk job and one of his former captains (that's rank not the guy that actually commands The sub) is now being put in charge, despite both protests of other officers and the general crew who see the guys something of a wet blanket. 
Turns out the brass wants him in charge because of his previous experience with the manufacturing and Patrol routes of Japanese naval ships. 
I guess he was an engineer for them or something back in the day when peacetime was the norm. He's tasked with finding a secret location of Japanese Cruisers and destroyers hiding out in a previously abandoned Island. 
But in order to do this he has to refrain from shooting down random ships that are out at Sea and this starts making everyone on the vessel very of tight, as they want to increase their kill count yet again. The bloodthirsty wackadoodles.

But It ultimately ends up better as they discover the secret base and are able to radio in the location of all these Japanese ships. Thus leading to an American Air bombardment that nearly destroyed submarine itself. 

Oh and there's also some weird plot in where the Don Knox fillin guy has to hook up with this random girl that everybody else paid. She practically a prostitute they just never say it. 
And that whole part of the movie is just awful. It feels way too much like one of those College fraternity films were they have to go through initiation hazing and all that crap.
In fact the first 30 minutes is pretty bad. 
The second half of the movie is surprisingly all right with some more Sub movements and a real sense of tension as they try to sneak in on this hyper guarded naval base in the middle of nowhere. It's a real turnaround movie and I was very thankful for that 

The only good part with the Don Knox character is that we get to see Mabel Rea really fill out that dress. I know that sounds sketchy and that's because it is. 
But she really does look darn good in this film. 

Otherwise she has no reason to be here and I am at least happy that the Don Knox's character didn't cheat on his girlfriend (who's back in Kansas). We see her at the end of the film and she looks just perfectly nice. Nothing wrong with her, why were the sailors giving this dorkie guy such a hard time?

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