Submarine Alert | |
---|---|
Directed by | Frank McDonald |
Written by | Maxwell Shane |
Based on | an original story by Shane |
Produced by | William H. Pine William C. Thomas |
Starring | Richard Arlen Wendy Barrie Nils Asther Roger Pryor Marc Lawrence Ralph Sanford |
Cinematography | Fred Jackman Jr. |
Edited by | William H. Ziegler |
Music by | Freddie Rich |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 66 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Submarine Alert is a 1943 American film directed by Frank McDonald, produced by Pine-Thomas Productions and released by Paramount Pictures. The film stars Richard Arlen, Wendy Barrie, Nils Asther, Roger Pryor, Marc Lawrence and Ralph Sanford. [1]
During World War II, with shipping being sunk by submarines and with an American scientist working on radio technology killed by Nazi spies, FBI agent G. B. Fleming (Roger Pryor) comes up with a plan to catch the Nazis. He believes that radio signals are alerting the Germans about ship movements. His plan is to fire all the local radio specialists, who likely will seek any employment, including working with the enemy. Tailing the jobless radio men will help the FBI find the Nazis.
Engineer Lewis J. "Lew" Deerhold (Richard Arlen) thinks he lost his job because he is a Canadian citizen. Lew looks after his niece Tina (Patsy Nash), a war orphan requiring a brain operation. Needing money, he applies for work at a radio repair shop, where he meets Ann Patterson (Wendy Barrie), the victim of a purse snatching. Lew recovers her purse and asks Ann out on a date.
After coming back to his apartment, his new boss is there with Dr. Arthur Huneker (Nils Asther) and his assistant Vincent Bela (Marc Lawrence). Lew is offered a job by Huneker, a Nazi spy commander who needs someone to repair a top-secret stolen radio transmitter. Ann is an FBI agent who has been assigned to follow Lew. She finds blueprints to the transmitter in Lew's possession. When FBI agent Freddie Grayson (Ralph Sanford) searches Lew's apartment, he is shot but is able to tell Lew that the doctor has the stolen transmitter and shot him.
Lew confronts Huneker, who is meeting with Japanese Commander Toyo (Abner Biberman). The pair try to convince Lew to join the Nazi party; he pretends to go along. When they begin to torture the owner of the Bambridge shipping company (John Miljan), their new recruit is ordered to kill Bambridge, who is actually Captain Hargas, an American agent. Instead, Lew escapes, taking with him the codes for the transmitter.
At the doctor's hot springs resort, Lew and Ann join forces, but are captured and locked in a steam room by Huneker. Before they are killed by the steam, Lew devises a transmitter and sends an SOS that is picked up by a young boy whose father calls the FBI. FBI agents rush to save Lew and Ann, and arrest Huneker and his men. Agent Fleming also contacts a bomber squadron that destroys the Japanese submarine laying in wait off the California coast. With his niece Tina recovered from her operation, and Ann in attendance, Lew, now a private in the US Army, is granted American citizenship.
Principal photography for Submarine Alert took place from June 1 to mid-June 1942 at the Fine Arts Studios, Hollywood, California. [2]
Submarine Alert was another in the series of B films churned out by the Pine-Thomas team. The film villain again was Swedish-born Nils Asther who was featured in three war adventures put out by William H. Pine and William C. Thomas. [3]
Like many of the spy and secret agent films of the era, it was a cautionary tale about the dangers of Nazi and Axis infiltration. [4] As a mildly patriotic vehicle, the film also made a statement about American values. [5] For reviewer Hal Erickson, "The plot of the Pine-Thomas adventure quickie 'Submarine Alert' is more than a little beholden to Hitchcock's 'The 39 Steps'." [6]
The film was not released for a year after it was made. Variety thought this made the film out of date. [7]
D.B. Cooper is a media epithet for an unidentified man who hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, a Boeing 727 aircraft operated by Northwest Orient Airlines, in United States airspace on November 24, 1971. During the flight from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington, the hijacker told a flight attendant he was armed with a bomb, demanded $200,000 in ransom, and requested four parachutes upon landing in Seattle. After releasing the passengers in Seattle, the hijacker instructed the flight crew to refuel the aircraft and begin a second flight to Mexico City, with a refueling stop in Reno, Nevada. About 30 minutes after taking off from Seattle, the hijacker opened the aircraft's aft door, deployed the staircase, and parachuted into the night over southwestern Washington. The hijacker has never been identified or found.
Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist and a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) who, following a controversial trial, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents in a June 26, 1975, shooting on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment and has been imprisoned since 1977. Peltier became eligible for parole in 1993. As of 2022, Peltier is incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary, Coleman in Florida.
Moonraker is the third novel by the British author Ian Fleming to feature his fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond. It was published by Jonathan Cape on 5 April 1955 and featured a cover design conceived by Fleming. The plot is derived from a Fleming screenplay that was too short for a full novel, so he added the passage of the bridge game between Bond and the industrialist Hugo Drax. In the latter half of the novel, Bond is seconded to Drax's staff as the businessman builds the Moonraker, a prototype missile designed to defend England. Unknown to Bond, Drax is German, an ex-Nazi now working for the Soviets; his plan is to build the rocket, arm it with a nuclear warhead, and fire it at London. Uniquely for a Bond novel, Moonraker is set entirely in Britain, which raised comments from some readers, complaining about the lack of exotic locations.
The following is an overview of 1929 in film, including significant events, a list of films released and notable births and deaths.
Tokyo Rose was a name given by Allied troops in the South Pacific during World War II to all female English-speaking radio broadcasters of Japanese propaganda. The programs were broadcast in the South Pacific and North America to demoralize Allied forces abroad and their families at home by emphasizing troops' wartime difficulties and military losses. Several female broadcasters operated using different aliases and in different cities throughout the territories occupied by the Japanese Empire, including Tokyo, Manila, and Shanghai. The name "Tokyo Rose" was never actually used by any Japanese broadcaster, but it first appeared in U.S. newspapers in the context of these radio programs during 1943.
Camp X was the unofficial name of the secret Special Training School No. 103, a Second World War British paramilitary installation for training covert agents in the methods required for success in clandestine operations. It was located on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario between Whitby and Oshawa in Ontario, Canada. The area is known today as Intrepid Park, after the code name for Sir William Stephenson, Director of British Security Co-ordination (BSC), who established the program to create the training facility.
The submarine film is a subgenre of war film in which the majority of the plot revolves around a submarine below the ocean's surface. Films of this subgenre typically focus on a small but determined crew of submariners battling against enemy submarines or submarine-hunter ships, or against other problems ranging from disputes amongst the crew, threats of mutiny, life-threatening mechanical breakdowns, or the daily difficulties of living on a submarine.
The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a United States government agency created during World War II. The OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and other forms of media, the OWI was the connection between the battlefront and civilian communities. The office also established several overseas branches, which launched a large-scale information and propaganda campaign abroad. From 1942 to 1945, the OWI revised or discarded any film scripts reviewed by them that portrayed the United States in a negative light, including anti-war material.
Erich Gimpel was a German spy during World War II. Together with William Colepaugh, he took part in Operation Elster ("Magpie") an espionage mission to the United States in 1944, but was subsequently captured by the FBI in New York City.
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Wendy Barrie was a British-American film and television actress.
Forced Landing is a 1941 American action film directed by Gordon Wiles and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film recounts the exploits of a pilot in Mosaque, an imaginary country in the midst of turmoil. Forced Landing stars Richard Arlen, Eva Gabor, J. Carrol Naish, Nils Asther and Evelyn Brent.
Operation Elster was a German espionage mission intended to gather intelligence on U.S. military and technology facilities during World War II. The mission commenced in September 1944 with two Nazi agents sailing from Kiel, Germany on the U-1230 and coming ashore in Maine on November 29, 1944. The agents were William Colepaugh, an American-born defector to Germany, and Erich Gimpel, an experienced German intelligence operative. They spent nearly a month living in New York City, expending large amounts of cash on entertainment, but accomplishing none of their mission goals.
Pine-Thomas Productions was a prolific B-picture unit of Paramount Pictures from 1940–1957, producing 81 films. Co-producers William H. Pine and William C. Thomas were known as the "Dollar Bills" because none of their economically made films ever lost money.
Flying Blind is a 1941 American action and comedy film directed by Frank McDonald and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film was the second movie from Pine-Thomas Productions. That company's first three films formed an unofficial "aviation trilogy"; all starred Richard Arlen.
No Hands on the Clock is a 1941 American comedy mystery film directed by Frank McDonald starring Chester Morris as detective Humphrey Campbell. The cast also included Jean Parker and Rose Hobart. It was produced by Pine-Thomas Productions and released by Paramount Pictures.
Madame Spy is a 1942 American spy film directed by Roy William Neill and starring Constance Bennett, Don Porter and John Litel. The screenplay concerns an American intelligence officer who goes undercover and infiltrates a ring of Nazi spies.
Edward Keane was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 300 films between 1921 and 1955.
Roger Pryor was an American film actor.
Nikolaus Ritter is best known as the Chief of Air Intelligence in the Abwehr who led spyrings in the United Kingdom and the United States from 1936 to 1941.