A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I actually saw this at the cinema as a young kid and it left quite an impression on me. Subsequent viewings on television have perhaps inevitably modified my enthusiasm.Widmark was such an iconic actor that it's hard not to keep watching any movie in which he features. And it's his amazing charisma, with the ambiguous mix of amoral detachment and yet ruthless determination of his character that raises this movie above the mediocre.He and a fairly passe B-movie cast are tasked with the job of spying on the (Chinese) reds. A group of dubiously patriotic wealthy businessmen have pooled their resources to buy a WW2 sub for the purpose. Off they go. It does at least look like a submarine they're in, whereas most of the set pieces appear stagy to the point of tackiness. This was not a big-budget effort. They have adventures along the way. On arrival they discover that these beastly commies are going to drop an atom-bomb from a captured American plane. That way the Yanks will get the blame.One of their number - the moral scientist - has sneaked ashore and plans to warn them of the plane's departure. They surface in time to ambush it and shoot it down, though things don't go quite according to plan.Lately I have begun to think that cinema - the big screen - is the only place to watch a movie and see what the director intended. Even a really big screen telly can never do justice to the original. It's a bit like watching wild animals in zoos instead of their natural environment. Unfortunately, you can't see these old efforts at the cinema any more, and in any case I am constantly stalked by a bloke with a big head who keeps sitting in front of me, whilst another character with a seemingly un-openable cellophane bag sits behind.Without Widmark this would be a serious bummer, answering the worst expectations of the term 'made for TV'. But he is there, and that makes all the difference. Though it's by no means particularly memorable.

Yeah, it telegraphs all of the big "reveals", it has some overly dramatic acting, the major plot points are easy to see coming, the "red shirts" are obvious, the scenes are kinda cheesy, the characters are all one-dimensional, the plot motivators are simple ("he needs fresh air" or "we didn't have time to test the torpedo tubes") but dang I loved it! It was almost like a bond movie without the gadgets, the unbelievable stunts, or the bad double entendres. It is an instant classic in my book; it is just on the edge of something that you can take seriously. If you go in not expecting much and you realize that this was made many years ago before all of the methods used in it became trite due to overuse, then you will walk away with a smile. There are many worse submarine movies, some of which consist of "I'm in charge!"..."No I'm in charge", while this one has some strategy, some minor humor, some action, and some larger-than-life threats, and some explosions.. all in all worth the rental.

HELL AND HIGH WATER was produced in 1954 when 20th Century-Fox was showing off their spectacular new CinemaScope process and Sterephonic Sound --- and thereby dominating the box office like they wouldn't do again until the Star Wars movies. They made the most of previously seldom filmed Paris, London, Rome, Tokyo location shots -- combined with excellent storytelling. With this movie they hired Samuel Fuller to direct it, one of the few directors with name recognition.A group of ex-Navy men are hired as mercenaries to take a submarine to an island in the Arctic to allow two scientists to investigate the suspected existence of nuclear weapons there.......When I saw this film in 1954, it was as movies were made to be shown. It played the 3,450 seat Loew's Capitol Theater which had an atmosphere fit for royalty; plus the widest screen, best stereo, best projection we ever had in Washington, DC. Loew's Capitol --- which lives on only in memory --- makes our present Kennedy Center look like a tar paper shack in comparison. Hell and High Water just came out in DVD but the CinemaScope effect is muted in that format; still we're used to that now.I rated this film a 10. In 1954 I might have said 8. But that was then and this is now. A few days ago a movie came out called SUPERBAD -- an instantly disposable piece of tripe, but thanks to 2007's low standards SUPERBAD ranks #81 in the all-time great movie list -- the CASABLANCA of the Bevis and Butthead Era. HELL AND HIGH WATER is a much better movie than any 2007 film, so by today's if-it-has-a-pulse-give-it-an-A standards it's gotta rate a 10.

Hell and High Water is a great Fifties film with Richard Widmark and his handpicked crew of WWII veterans trying to foil a dastardly Communist plot to start WWIII.Widmark is a former submarine commander who's been hired to check out a secret base that the Communist Chinese seem to be building in the islands north of Japan. The group that's hired him is some kind of consortium of western scientists who seem to be operating as a secret society. Like Captain Midnight or heaven forfend, the Tri-Lateral Commission.Parts of the plot and definitely some of the footage is taken from another submarine picture that 20th Century Fox did, Crash Dive. It's so obvious, especially when you have Richard Widmark's voice with no closeups, over the footage from the previous film. That also concerned a secret Nazi base in the Atlantic and the submarine crew that went to clean them out.Along for the ride in the submarine are scientists Victor Francen and his assistant Bella Darvi who was Darryl Zanuck's main squeeze at the time. Ms. Darvi had a short and tragic life and her story would make a real interesting picture.Far more interesting than this, though I will say the submarine special effects are outstanding.