Pacific Rendezvous (1942) User Reviews

Don't shoot! It's Riley from the Department of Justice!

[sol1218 · 6/10 · 3 April 2008]

**SPOILERS** A bit, to put it mildly, over the top as well as heads of the audience watching the film "Pacific Rendezvous" is so overloaded with complicated sub-plots that it just lose it, in trying to simply explain itself, well before the movie is even over.

Were shown right at the beginning of the movie that the Japaneses Navy, in the spring of 1942, has not only gone beyond the Hawaiian islands but within twenty miles outside off San Francisco in sinking US munition and transport ships. This has the Secretary of the Navy Edward Fielding have his intelligence department work overtime in the fact that someone is feeding the "Japs" the navy's secret code. This code tells what the rendezvous points are of every war and transport ship departing the states for the Pacific war-zone.

It's then that out of nowhere pops up the smiling and comical William "Wild Bill" Gordon, Lee Bowman, who somehow gets himself in the US Navy as an officer no less. "Wild Bill" in order to prove his patriotism for his country is now itching for a chance to take on the "Japs" on the high seas in deadly naval combat engagements.

It turns out that the bragging and not that all secretive "Wild Bill" in trying to impress the beautiful but scatterbrain Eline Carter, Jean Rogers, blew his cover as a code breaking expert. "Wild Bill" tells Eline, who wanted nothing to do with him at first, that he in fact is the person who, using a pseudonym, wrote what's considered to be the definitive work on code breaking. That book is now the bible in every nations intelligence department including the USA. This has Eline tell her Uncle John Carter (Russell Hicks), who assistant to the Navy Secretary, who "Wild Bill" really is! The guy who wrote the master code breaking book of all times. A shocked "Wild Bill" is soon sent to the safety of a cushy desk job at US Naval Intelligence in D.C not the Pacific war-zone that he's just dying to participate in.

The movie has "Wild Bill" figurer out the Japaneses code, which was a piece of cake for him, in no time at all. Even after he almost overdosed, in Eline trying to get him to get some rest, on a bottle of sleeping pills that was slipped into his coffee.

It turned out that the US Navy's biggest problem was to trick the "Japs" into thinking that their code wasn't broken. This would have the Japanese Navy attack ,and expose itself to the US navy's 16 inch guns, a phantom US troop convoy being shipped to the Pacific while the real convoy was some 300 miles in the other direction out of harms way! Of course with all these complications and mind games in the movie you have to have some comic relief and that's where Eline and "Wild Bill" come in with their screwball comedy routine.

It's amazing that Eline, despite being the niece of the assistant to the Secretary of the Navy, wasn't put under lock and key for the duration of the war. The girl was nothing but trouble in her almost mindless way of doing more damage to her country then the entire Nazi, not "Jap",spy ring operating in D.C.

The Nazi spy ring, helping their ally in WWII Japan, actually infiltrated the home of the head of Naval intelligence Cmdr. Brenman, Paul Cavanagh, with Nazi woman spy Olivia Kerlov, Mona Maris, becoming his secret lover. The commander not realizing until it was too late that Olivia is spying for the enemy gets himself blown away when he tried to catch Olivia in the act.

****SPOILER FROM THIS POINT ON***Now with heat, as well as FBI, on her back Olivia is forced by her superiors to "out" fellow Nazi spy and foreign journalist Adre Leemouth, Carl Esmond, in order to throw them off the track. By now knowing that their, or the Japanese, code has been broken the Nazis kidnap both "Wild Bill" together with Eline, to make "Wild Bill" talk, in order to get the new US Navy rendezvous point to radio back to their Japanese allies. This leads the FBI and police straight to the Nazis hideout in that the rendezvous point that "Wild Bill" gave them was in fact the address to their secret hideout in Washington D.C!

Hit the topical button accidently

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 4 October 2019]

They didn't know it but MGM made a sort of topical film with Pacific Rendezvous. We had in fact broken the Japanese code around this time which was of course was invaluable. But no one knew then.

Lee Bowman like every good sailor wants to get to sea especially after Pearl Harbor. But on a date Jean Rogers hears he wrote a book on code breaking and tells her uncle Stanley Ridges about him. He's impressed into the Navy's codebreaking group.

And there's the inevitable Axis spy ring operating and they have to be rounded up with spies in the most unlikely places. Rogers trying to be Myrna Loy to Bowman's Bill Powell and makes holy hash of all she touches. How did we win that war?

Pacific Rendezvous is a pleasant bit of cinema from MGM's B picture unit.

Espionage tale borders on the absurd when it comes to comedy...

[Doylenf · 5/10 · 30 January 2013]

What really weakens what could have been a good narrative is the attempt to insert light hearted comic elements into the plot of PACIFIC RENDEZVOUS. Instead of playing it as straight drama, what could have emerged as a timely romantic drama about breaking the Japanese code during WWII becomes a trivial piece of fluff with an absurd spotlight on the silly character played by Jean Rogers.

She's the girlfriend of our hero (Lee Bowman) and does him no favors when it comes to helping the war effort crack the code. For sheer stupidity (and to make her character seem "cute" at all times), she slips dozens of sleeping pills in his coffee so he can get some rest from a heavy schedule of solving the code and ignoring her.

And throughout the movie she pouts, bounces around and shows jealousy of any other female who pursues Bowman, as for example female spy Mona Maris. Her acting is dreadful enough to bring the story down to the level of irritating fluff where it remains until the final reel.

An interesting cast headed by Lee Bowman, Russell Hicks, Mona Maris, Carl Esmond, Hans Conreid, Curt Bois and several other good players is defeated by a silly script which reduces the whole thing to a B-budget MGM programmer which played the lower half of double features in the '40s.

Typical "B" Espionage film

[reve-2 · 4/10 · 25 February 2000]

This is a rather tame fluff piece concerning WW II codes being broken, stolen, etc. The acting is about what I expected from this cast of MGM "B" actors.

One big caution. Jean Rogers, who did such a great job playing the very sexy Dale Arden in the first two Flash Gordon serials is just awful in this movie. Her character is extremely annoying. She absolutely never lets-up with her overacting. We are supposed to believe that during the height of a World War in what would obviously be a Top Secret code facility, she would be allowed to just pop in and out of any office of her choosing although she has no official function. From that standpoint I'm sorry that I ever watched this film. It has forever changed my perception of Ms. Rogers. Talentwise, she is an extreme lightweight.

Lee Bowman is his usual self, meaning that he is merely adequate.

Despite being a B-movie, this COULD have been a lot better!

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 31 December 2006]

This is almost like two films--one literate and engaging, the other stupid and clichéd. It's really a shame all the problems weren't worked out with the writing, but considering how quickly most B-movies were written and produced, this isn't too unusual. It's a real shame, though, as this could have been a very good film.

First the good. The movie is original and involves WWII code-breakers. This is pretty fascinating and I liked watching the leading man (Lee Bowman) go through his paces as a master code-breaker. In fact, the first two-thirds of the film was very good. But now for the bad, the film just went on way too long and lost steam at about 50 minutes. Additionally, Jean Rogers' role as the "kooky girlfriend" must rank as one of the worst-written and distracting roles in film history!! For every smart move made by Bowman, the idiot Rogers then stepped in to screw things up as some sort of misguided "comedy relief". If her role had been intelligently written, the overall film would have improved immensely! Instead, watching her, it's hard to understand how we actually won WWII!!

A TEN WORST FILMS of all time.

[Dick-42 · 1/10 · 14 November 1998]

Ludicrous violations of the most basic security regs are only the beginning. It's hard to see how they achieved such abysmal trash on such a low budget. I turned it off once, then got curious to see if it could get any worse. It did.

Remarkably good fun

[morrisonhimself · 10/10 · 16 March 2009]

Looking at some of the other comments, I started to wonder if they and I had seen different movies.

Or maybe they were just in a bad mood while watching.

Regardless, I loved this movie. I found the performers -- mostly un- or little-known actors -- very good and likable. Even the bad guys displayed a certain charm.

The dialog was often clever, and often downright funny.

The story itself was perhaps not edge-of-the-seat exciting -- I mean, heck, of course the good guys were gonna win; after all, it was a wartime film -- but it kept a willing viewer watching.

If you've not seen this, I recommend it. Just remember: Context, context, context. Remember when it was made, and what was going on in the world.

And, as always, suspend your disbelief. Relax and enjoy.

Romance, spies, intrigue, patriotism and murder too

[JRis1-4Jesus · 8/10 · 29 August 2005]

This MGM (5th Column) spy movie is made by the A team at MGM. It opens with a Japanese sub sinking an American ship. Then you see that the Nazis (not Japanese) have taken over a D.C. hotel from which they transmit messages including the position of the just sunken supply ship. The obvious fear that is revealed is that the axis (Germany and Japan) nations are working together. I have read that "Code breaking" by both the Germans and Japanese was common and was a great problem for the USA in WW2. Next we go to a ballroom in a hotel, probably the Park hotel. Lt. Gordon (Lee Bowman) meets his romantic interest Elaine (Jean Rogers). Jean Rogers appearance, later in the movie, is very appealing. Her female rival Olivia (Mona Maris) reminds one of a fetching Kay Francis. Although it was patriotic, romantic, intriguing and had two murders, the writers were brilliant as the plot was also cute and light. In 1942, this was (most likely) welcomed after a year of doubt beginning with Pearl Harbor, the Bataan death march and the defeat at Corregidor. Nothing encouraging was happening in Europe and the US troops in Africa had been less than heroic. Here we find a hero in navy Lt. Gordon who breaks the Nazi code which allows them to intercept the Nazi transmission. They discover they have but three days to discover who has stolen a US code book, recover it and prevent another major WW2 disaster. Does Lt. Gordon discover the bad guy 5th Columnists? Does he recover the Code Book and thereby prevent the death of a convoy of troops, a part of the 300,000 reinforcements? The 300,000 who will be needed in the Pacific to bring victory over Japan. In 1942 the USA had been awakened out of its sleep by Japan at Pearl Harbor (Dec.7, 1941) and was now dressing for WAR, for total victory and would insist on an unconditional surrender. Yes, it has a light romantic comedy woven into an otherwise very heavy, sad and despairing movie. This movie was "just what the doctor ordered" at this time of desperation and preparation. You will come away from this movie encouraged with a smile on your face. (Smile)

Don't know what movie the others saw

[ffattahi · 8/10 · 5 October 2019]

I just watched this on TCM expecting to regret the hour and a half I would have lost afterwards. I turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. Low budget, indeed, but within that low budget, they managed to entertain us with good tale of wartime espionage with an intriguing plot. especially noteworthy is the deciphering scene by the team led by the main character. It is a very memorable scene and in a bigger movie would be remembered as a classic.

Yes this movie does swing a little between a romantic comedy and a serious plot, but we have come to see that with later, more expensive, and more famous movies such as Charade with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. And yes there's the cliche of the cavalry arriving in time to save the day, but even that is explained to adequate satisfaction.

Something tells me the other reviewers expected a masterpiece here. It is not. But it is definitely far from a waste of your time. Sit down, Relax, and enjoy it.

PS, One of the reviewers condemned the performance of Jean Rogers as overacting and annoying. Well, I found that to be really harsh and unfair. To this reviewer she was very cute in her delivery of the role. I guess one man's "annoying" is another man's "cute." The only question one may ask is why her character had such a free roam in the venue of a top secret war deciphering operation. The only explanation of that, i suppose, was that her uncle was a hotshot boss there.