Frank's Movie Log

Grade: C-

Synopsis: A submarine officer (William Holden) finds himself haunted by a difficult decsion he made during a World War II battle.

Submarine Command, depending on how you look at it, is either a good war picture broken up by a plodding melodrama, or a good melodrama ruined by a pat, war-picture ending. Either way, the attempt by the filmmakers to marry the two genres doesn’t quite work.

The war scenes are solid, if unremarkable. Lead William Holden is good in a part he would later admit he only vaguely remembered due to his alcoholism, and underrated character actor William Bendix is great as his chief antagonist.

The melodrama is somewhat weaker. Nancy Olson, who previously teamed with Holden in Sunset Blvd. (1950) and Union Station (1950), is better here, but, as with the previous films, her performance still feels forced. At the time, the subject matter of what’s now commonly known as post traumatic stress disorder was still novel, with this entry, along with others like Till the End of Time (1946), being some of first to broach the subject. But in the years since, this material’s been tread and retread by better films.

Thus, Submarine Command is something of an anachronism, a movie ahead of its time, but still dated. Fans of Holden and Bendix should definitely enjoy it, though others can skip it.