Hellcats Of The Navy (DVD)

Hellcats of the Navy was produced in 1957 and was directed by Nathan Juran (First Men In The Moon, Seventh Voyage Of Sinbad)
and was introduced by Chester W. Nimitz Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC), which was in itself a rare thing, as 'Chesty' as he was known was not one for making a television appearance.
He said that it was important to show the public post war that the submarine / naval service was to be thanked ...
...he wanted to do it.
The other remarkable thing about this film, was the fact that it was the only film that starred Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis (David being her stage name, but of course was Reagan)

The story....
The film is based around a true incident that occurs in the Second World War, in the Tsushima Straits a heavily mined area of water, Commander Casey Abbott (Reagan) is assigned to enter the straits and do ... more

Hellcats of the Navy was produced in 1957 and was directed by Nathan Juran (First Men In The Moon, Seventh Voyage Of Sinbad)
and was introduced by Chester W. Nimitz Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC), which was in itself a rare thing, as 'Chesty' as he was known was not one for making a television appearance.
He said that it was important to show the public post war that the submarine / naval service was to be thanked for their help during both the Second World War, and he wanted to do it.
The other remarkable thing about this film, was the fact that it was the only film that starred Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis (David being her stage name, but of course was Reagan)

The story....
The film is based around a true incident that occurs in the Second World War, in the Tsushima Straits a heavily mined area of water, Commander Casey Abbott (Reagan) is assigned to enter the straits and do as much damage to the enemy as possible, and sever the link with the Asiatic mainland and the Japanese home islands.
Casey shares his affections with a nurse (Nancy Davis) with another crew member on board, a diver.
Casey enters the straits and starts destroying shipping. He manages to get out of the straits with a chart showing a way through the deadly minefield.
Things get though for Abbott when he orders the submarine to dive leaving the diver on his own in the dangerous waters, effectively signing his death warrant. His second in command Lt Commander Landon (Arthur Franz) questions his decision and Abbott, has to teach Landon the difference between making a life and death decision and emotional reaction. Landon is not convinced until later in the film Abbott is left stranded in the sea and Landon has to make that decision himself, should he dive to save the crew of the USS Starfish or try and save the Commander?
I won't tell you anything further of the plot except to say that everything comes out 'peachy'.

Personally, I believe that this B movie is just under average, compared with other submarine films of the era, such as Destination Tokyo, and did not have as much detail as other films such as Run Silent, Run Deep. The acting is below par as well and can be cheesy in places. However, I cannot slate this old film too much. The film was trying to show the post war public an insight in to submarine warfare and was trying to feed the curiosity of public, who wanted to know what happened to 'our boys' in the war..

In my opinion this film is not great and the feature had a low budget which can be seen when the director used footage from other films, the special effects are not great either, but if you wanted a quiet afternoon in watching a Black & White, War / romance then this would be ok. I wouldn't go out and buy it though....

The actors/actresses
Ronald Reagan ; Nancy Davis ; Arthur Franz ; Robert Arthur ; William Leslie ; Joe Turkel

Disc Features
There are no documentaries etc but does have the following features:-
4 languages (English, German, Italian and Spanish)
9 languages (subtitles)
Shot in Wide screen

Running time 1hr 18mins, Black & White 

...less