After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I first saw this movie as a teenager in the 1970's. I remember it well, and I did enjoy it. As I have grown older and wiser, developed an interest in naval and political history, and served in the navy myself, I have realised the films limitations. On one level it is an exciting war adventure. But it was intended as more than that. The film was intended as a hagiography. Despite its best efforts, it is unable to elevate Kennedy above what he was - a self-centred, hedonistic, arrogant, elitist, who was sure of his own place in history. He used others to advance himself, even if that meant endangering the lives of his own crew, and claiming credit for their survival when credit lay with others.

They should never make movies of any kind about people still alive. Look what happened to Orson Welles.This is a story about the most popular president of the last half of the 20th century and John F. Kennedy only imposed one stricture: They must not ape his Boston accent. Of course, neither could the writers give the principal character any weaknesses or other flaws. The screenplay therefore turns him into something non-human.At that, though, he'd come off far worse today. JFK was a genuine hero in a glamorous Navy job, but the movie would be far less popular in today's political climate because there seems to be no room for heroes. His every move would be examined in torturous detail. His decisions dissected by political pathologists looking for germs. His adventures would be defined stridently as fraudulent.However, this was released in 1963 when we still had ideal types. The poor screenwriters were left with a tough job, humanizing a living icon without making it seem like a parody. The writers fingers must have been itching to insert every conceivable war movie cliché into the film and they came close to succeeding.JFK's first command in PT 109 and it's a wreck without a crew. He finds a motley crew. The cook is a Seaman who only knows how to make peanut butter sandwiches. Sometimes he puts jelly in them. The engines don't work properly and Kennedy runs the bow through a waterfront shack. The men gripe good-naturedly about their circumstances but through it all JFK wears a smile and radiates optimism. The squadron commander is James Gregory, a perennial blow hard who was best at lampooning blow hards, not being stern but fair. There are scenes of bombing and an extended scene of the 109 being cut in two by a Japanese destroyer, when much of the comedy disappears, but the direction remains undistinguished. The score is overdone. The only cliché missing is the beautiful native girl or the sweetheart waiting patiently back home. The PT boats seen darting around look swift and dangerous but in reality their maximum speed was reduced from 40 on paper to about 35 miles per hour, slower than a destroyer or a torpedo.It's not an insulting movie. It's just not especially interesting, except for some exceptional location shooting in and around the Florida Keys. You can usually tell when a movie is shot in the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean. The sea is turquoise. In the South Pacific it's a fathomless, almost electric blue.Want to see a better movie about the PTs, although still overdramatized? Watch John Ford's "They Were Expendable." If you'd enjoy the fake comic elements in stories about decrepit boats on important missions, "Operation Petticoat" is a better choice.

This Warner Brothers production was personally supervised by Jack Warner. Legend has it that Warren Beatty was Jackie Kennedy's choice to play he husband in the film but Jack decided on Cliff Robertson? Warren Beatty in 1963 was best known for his role in Dobie Gillis on TV & would have been coming from a starring role in All Fall Down in 1962. He would have gone from playing a drifter to laying a young US President. Instead he would be in 1964's Lilith next. Beatty was really just getting going. Robertson, in contrast was already an established star. As JFK was actually more of a conservative Democrat, the established star would make more sense. This film runs a bit long at 2 hours & 20 minutes, but I think that has to do with the fact that JFK told them he wanted accuracy in this movie. Think that scared Warners into making it long in order to make a statement about it being accurate. It is not as far off as many times when Hollywood would take liberties with. Robert J Donovan who wrote the book, really only has 1 other writing credit. I guess he made enough money on PT109 that he didn't write Cold War until 1998.This a a fairly good film as a young Robert Culp, James Gregory, Norman Fell, & some other folks who would go on to more fame are in this one. I like the way it opens with a junior officer trying to get JFK to go stateside & open brothels with him. Ironically, maybe JFK should have taken him up on that, but why should he need to run brothels when legend has it he could have almost any woman he wanted for free.This tale states that JFK's back problems were caused when a Japanese Destroyer cut the 109 into 2 halves. The legend of that here is put too film along with some other major materials.

Cliff Robertson was a good choice to play Lt. John F. Kennedy, new PT boat commander in 1944. He looked a bit like Kennedy and was able to recreate many of his mannerisms. This movie hit the theaters in the USA in June 1963, just after I graduated from high school, and only five months before President Kennedy died from a bullet in Dallas, Texas. I remember it well, it was perfect for the times, as it dramatized the events where the boat, PT 109, was rammed by a Japanese destroyer and sank, but Kennedy was able to lead the survivors to safety in the hostile South Pacific waters.The movie opens in August 1942, the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, the US Navy was using PT boats because they were fast, had a shallow draft, and carried a good complement of torpedoes. We first see Lt. Kennedy receiving his assignment aboard a destroyer, in 1943 or 1944, then landing on the island base. With no active boats available, he was offered the PT 109, which had been neglected and was not ship-shape. He was given a makeshift crew, and one week to get it seaworthy. Which he and his men do, and pass the inspection with flying colors. Kennedy is shown as a leader by example, working side by side with his men, and taking the time to thank them for a job well done.The movie goes on to show the deployment of the 109 into regular service, and the incident which resulted in the sinking of the boat and subsequent fight for survival. Even though he was eligible for an assignment stateside, Kennedy took another boat and continued the battle. It is well made for a 1963 movie.Kennedy was born in 1917 and was 26 when he enlisted in the Navy after Harvard. When he was 38 he completed his book, "Profiles In Courage" which won a Pulitzer Prize. When he was only 43, in 1960, he defeated Richard Nixon and became President of the USA. In November 1963, he was dead. In spite of his flaws as a man, as a leader and as a President he was remarkable, and this is a good movie to remind us of that.