Just so...so bad

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

Episodic, boring and about a half hour too long, this is a pure WWII propaganda film for the Merchant Marine. Watching this on DVR, I found myself fast forwarding thru much of the seemingly endless propaganda speeches that litter this picture. The performances are, at best, adequate and at worst, dreadful. Warner Brothers usual array of character actors provide little, if any, "action" to this film. Alan Hale, whom I normally find enjoyable, chews up scenery at every turn. Raymond Massey is, well, Raymond Massey. Bogie does his best with what he was given but even he can't save this turkey. Stereotypes and clichés run rampant throughout the film. Some pretty good battle scenes don't save this flick from being a two hour exercise in tedium. All-in-all, this film is best for Bogie fans and Merchant seamen.

This is a quality propaganda film about the World War 2 effort. It is designed purely to prop up the home front. It is quite effective in this effort.The cast- Humphrey Bogart, Raymond Massey, Alan Hale & Dane Clark is very strong. Granted the cast doesn't get a lot of quality dialog but it does pretty well with what they do have. The sailors wife is really well illustrated.A whole section of the film is kind of a World War 2 headline for diversity (which was invented way before the 1990's). It shows our hero's ship steaming into Nova Scotia & how diverse a fleet is there from many Allied Countries to ship war materials to fight the Nazi's.The action sequences in this war time film are well done, & the lack of mechanical detail had much to do with the war effort. While a type of sonar is mentioned, no mention is made of radar & everything appears to be quite crude. This doesn't make the action suffer.

This comparatively little-known film should have done for the Merchant Sailors of WWII what "The Cruel Sea" did for the image of the Royal Navy. The men who sailed the convoy ships were treated appallingly by the owners of the vessels they crewed, who indeed where quick to institute "retroactive stoppage of pay" clauses upon receiving word of a ship's being lost. They also were subject to verbal --even physical-- abuse by their own countrymen, who routinely mistook them for "Service Shirkers". "Action" is one of the few films that gives them their due.This film is remarkable on many counts. Not only is the acting rock solid, and the story in itself a fine "sea saga", but the director has managed to avoid many potential pitfalls thrown into in his path by the War (Propaganda?) Department. The obligatory leave-taking scenes are touching, but not maudlin; the even more obligatory "speech-making" is impassioned, but never embarrassingly so. And the Enemy is portrayed as a thoroughly competent if ruthless professional, as dedicated to his own trade as the convoy Sailors are to theirs. (I for one did not find the lack of English "subtitles" a problem --I could pretty well figure out what the U-Boat skipper and his crew were up to.) To repeat my opening comments,-- this film, though not as well-circulated as "The Cruel Sea", certainly should rank as its equal.

Frankly I wasn't expecting much from this flag-waver which I've never seen until today's screening as part of a Bogie retrospective at the NFT. I was aware that it formed part of Bogie's war-time CV and I had also read the oft-repeated story of how Bogie and Massy made an on-set wager as to whose stunt double was the bravest. That's what I KNEW. What I EXPECTED was a morale-booster laced liberally with not-too-subtle propaganda (given that the screenplay was by John Howard Lawson who never let a chance to praise Communism pass) and a cast of trained seals walking through it. What I GOT was actually very entertaining and informative, a movie that both invites and can withstand comparison with In Which We Serve. In both films a ship is blown out of the water in the first three reels, there are several survivors who eventually join another ship and sea-time is leavened by shore time. One (In Which We Serve) celebrates the Royal navy whilst the other (Action In The North Atlantic)deals with the Merchant navy and draws attention to the vital part the service played in the War effort. In Which We Serve on balance comes off marginally better but it did have the virtue of being written and co-directed by an exceptionally talented man, Noel Coward, who also played a leading role and apart from this Coward was able to lard his screenplay with a richer 'civilian' storyline inasmuch as England, unlike America, suffered heavy bombing resulting in thousands of civilian casualties. What we are left with is a fine film with realistic dialogue slightly more colorful than that in the British film, sterling performances from a typical Hollywood 'bomber-crew' including the ubiquitous Alan Hale, plus Sam Levene and Dane Clark. Ruth Gordon and Julie Bishop are stuck with the thankless roles of sailor's wives and for good measure Bishop gets to sing Cole Porter's Night And Day. It was a meister stroke to get a Hitler looka-like (complete with moustache to make sure we get it) to play the U-Boat officer behind the initial attack. There's probably little scope for further screenings outside of this kind of retrospective but it's definitely worth looking out for on DVD.