kapelusznik18 (Mild Spoilers) Humprey Bogart in his first film release since his Academy Award winning-Best Picture-"Casablanca" is on the high seas in the choppy and cold North Atlantic as second mate or 1st officer John Rossi doing his part for the allied war effort against the Nazis. It's Rossi who's sailing his cargo ship the "Seawitch" through U-Boat infested waters to the Russian seaport of Murmansk with trucks tanks and fuel going to the desperate Red Army holding off the Nazis in their attempt to capture the Russian city of Lenningrad. Having survived a previous U-Boat attack and 11 days at sea on a raft until he and what was left of his crew including his good friend Captain Stev Jarvis, Raymond Massy, were rescued Rossi were determined not to get his crew and his ship sunk a second time around; that's if he and those on board could help it.With the convoy #211 that he was part of getting attacked by a wolf -pack of German U-Boats the "Seawitch" was cut off from the convoy and left on its own to fend off both German U-Boats as well as bomber attacks as it tried to make it way to Murmansk some 1,000 miles away. In one of the German attacks Capt. Jarvis was badly wounded and put in sick-bay with Rossie taking over command of the ship. The German U-Boat captain, Wilhelm Von Brincken, who felt that he his Fuhrer -Hitler-and crew were insulted by the "Seawitch" crew by, when he ordered them to surrender, giving him the finger forgot about the rules of war and was now more then determined to sink the "Seawitch" and its crew even if they surrendered or not.A cat and mouse game is played by the "Seawitch" and the German U-Boat with a squad of German fighter bombers joining in. That lead to a kamikaze like attack by one of the German planes that crashed, with the pilot losing control,into the "Seawitch" killing a number of it's crewmen. Just as the U-Boat was about to torpedo the listing US cargo ship a number of allied destroyers and bombers showed up and then dropping bombs and a number of depth charges on it to finally put it out of commission.P.S Also in the cast is Dean Clark in his first staring role as seaman Johnnie Polaski with Sam Levene and Alan Hale Sr as seamen Abel "Chips" Abrams & Alfred "Boats O'Hara" to round out the multi ethnic,Polish Jewish & Irish, crew. It was Humprey Bogart who insisted that the ship's captain should be of what we now politically correctly call African/American decent but was overruled feeling that it would hurt the films box office returns especially in he southern states.

kindtxgal I was happy to discover the writing for this film earned an Oscar nod. It's well deserving.Brisk, exciting action explodes across the screen for the first 30 minutes before seguing into quieter character sketches on the primary actors for the World War II film highlighting the Merchant Marines' role in aiding convoy supply ships headed for Russia.Exremely well-written and edited to create a really great film and overview of the primary focus of the film, the Merchant Marines. I enjoyed the film's character sketches as well.Fantastically shot battle scenes between ships, submarines, and airplanes hurl the story to a patriotic, flag-waving conclusion and keep viewers glued to it to see what is next.The balance between battles, the human condition of the characters, and strategy are phenomenal. I would have liked to rate the film five stars, but became distracted by a great deal of film time focused on the German UBoats and planes, without any captioning. All of the German dialogue simply wasted the film timing & created a feeling of frustration just because SO MUCH time is given them. Had captioning been done, it would have served the story very well.Look for small bit parts played by familiar faces Dane Clark and Sam Levene, and the ever-gregarious Alan Hale just enough comic relief.

Spikeopath A cracking formulaic war propaganda piece that brings notice to the often forgotten work that the Allied Merchant Marines did during World War II. Lloyd Bacon directs with John Howard Lawson adapting from Guy Gilpatric's story "Heroes Without Uniform". Leading the cast list are Raymond Massey, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Hale, Dane Clark & Sam Levene. While Ruth Gordon & Julie Bishop play the two "filler" female roles of the girls left to fret back on dry land.The story follows the crew of the cargo tanker Northern Star, who at the start of the film are torpedoed by the Nazis in the North Atlantic. Out on a raft without food and water for eleven days, the surviving members of the crew are finally rescued by the Navy. Once recuperated, the men wait at home for another ship and finally get assigned to the Sea Witch, which is required to take supplies to Murmansk in the Soviet Union. What follows is a perilous journey as the Sea Witch is engaged in battles by a German "wolf pack".Brisk in pace, Bacon's film contains great 1940s special effects and has a number of excellently constructed action sequences. Successfully blending real life footage and model work with the work on the Warner's lot, the makers have managed to craft a piece that shows propaganda movies are not all boorish excuses for flag waving. Yes from the outset we are in no doubt that the German's are dastardly devils, the first twenty minutes of the film is both exciting and tense as "The Hun" try to obliterate our protagonists in a whirl of explosions and burning oil slicks. But at its heart is a very humanistic tale of a group of men from a cross section of ethnic backgrounds trying to keep it together as they do their bit for the war effort. These characters are well formed, and thankfully they are acted accordingly by the largely on form cast. Given a thumbs up over the years by veterans of the Merchant Marines, the film was also used as a recruitment tool for said service. That in itself is reasons for the movie to hold its head up high. That it's also a ripper of an action movie, with very interesting characters, doubly makes this a fine entry in the propaganda led genre of 40s war movies. 7.5/10

carvalheiro "Action in the North Atlantic" (1943) directed by Lloyd Bacon is or still is an adventurer hymn of joy to those who traveled and entering the bay, evicting the blockade to the Murmansk port during WWII, which impeached promissory vessels with the food help and also other material coming to Russia, after the victory in Stalingrad ground against German army. It is somewhat oldest as style, with a touch of war propaganda, that annoys its interest now and fabricated behavior as movie, notwithstanding its good spirit as a fiction almost narrated partly as a documentary about if not with some lines between characters on the boat. The scenes of the maritime workers union are powerful, as influenced by social convictions that were considered before as subversives for the bosses, but is there where is discussed the problem of ship wrecking during this kind of trips over the seas. Namely concerning wreckage of vessels, as only attended by any kind of civil cargo in that path and, by consequence, the increasing of the tremendous death toll of crews in the recent past, it is the dramatic jump for another step in the fight against closed influence by the top hierarchical oppression of any structure. Meaning that, however, humble people of sailors are strength enough for changing plans from the previous catastrophe of such an isolationist mind and irresponsibleness of supreme fighters, whom previously not had heard with accuracy the experiment of the survivors. Preparing continually courage for the worst, next in the darkness of the maritime fog inside the cargo, across mining undersea shelling sometimes with such horror people. Or, in a given sequence, when a submarine was waiting for a little bit of noise at surface, inducing that nearby Allies were there for well done, escaping after a war of nerves and sacrifices. The scene with the Russians squadron of airplanes, welcoming the ship's convoy of maritime cargo, it is one of the most ironic and best conceived for the time, as opening the space for the good will of the goods. That survived the successive battles on the trip made almost in closed atmosphere, during the most part of the story of this movie, made too with the anxiety from the condensed way of acting. Why not understanding the limits of the way, that Lloyd Bacon composed with fast understatement such a victory of humanity ? When this movie is considered still now, as a piece of warrior's art since then, with such an enthusiasm from the icy harbor of Murmansk, from the entire population, as common interest from the then spelled Allies of fortune.