Action in the North Atlantic (1943)

Director:

Lloyd Bacon

Writers:

John Howard Lawson (screenplay)
Guy Gilpatric (story)

Release Date:

12 June 1943 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | War

Tagline:

Warner Bros. thunderous story of the men of the merchant marine!

Plot:

Lieutenant Joe Rossi is 1st Officer on a Liberty Ship in a great convoy bound from Halifax to Murmansk...

Plot Keywords:

Convoy | North Atlantic | Attack | U Boat | Camaraderie

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Humphrey Bogart	...	Lt. Joe Rossi
Raymond Massey	...	Capt. Steve Jarvis
Alan Hale	...	Boats O'Hara
Julie Bishop	...	Pearl O'Neill
Ruth Gordon	...	Mrs. Sarah Jarvis
Sam Levene	...	Abel 'Chips' Abrams
Dane Clark	...	Johnnie Pulaski
Peter Whitney	...	Whitey Lara
Dick Hogan	...	Cadet Robert Parker
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Virginia Christine	...	Pebbles (scenes deleted)
Robert Mitchum
Ray Montgomery	...	Aherne (replaced by Tod Andrews) (scenes deleted)

Runtime:

126 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

USA:Approved (certificate #8706) | Australia:G (TV rating) | Canada:PG (video rating) | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Spain:T | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Santa Barbara, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

When shooting the scene early in the movie, when their characters abandoned ship from their burning tanker, Humphrey Bogart and Raymond Massey got into a friendly argument over who had the better stunt double. In the end, the two stars decided to do away with their stunt doubles altogether and wound up doing the stunt themselves.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When leaving the seaport for the first time, the rudder commands do not make sense. The skipper did not a specific degree of rudder turn (i.e. 10 degrees or 1/3 rudder). Nor did he give a specific course for the helms man to steer (i.e. 150 degrees magnetic).

Quotes:

Lt. Joe Rossi: No matter how many tanks and planes and guns you pile up, no matter how many men you got, it doesn't mean a thing unless the men get the stuff when they need it.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Warner at War (2008) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Night and Day

Convoying Lend Lease

Raymond Massey and Humphrey Bogart as captain and first mate of a merchant marine ship, see their first ship sunk by a German U-boat. They get a second ship and with some of their surviving crew from the first ship join an international convoy taking supplies to the Soviet Union.

From Halifax to Murmansk quite a flotilla of merchant ships from a whole lot of countries that had declared war on the Axis. The convoy was something like a sea going wagon train which was developed because individual ships were easy prey for submarines. The seagoing wagon train got a destroyer escort and they were armed now as well.

The merchant seaman were not technically part of the armed forces. But that didn't mean they weren't seeing a lot of action as Action in the North Atlantic so clearly demonstrates. Bad enough when the Lend lease was to Great Britain, but when we became allies with the Soviets the only places it could go were the ports of Murmansk and Archangel when they were ice free. That meant a voyage along the long Norwegian coast line which was occupied by Germany.

Bogart and Massey give strong portrayals of dedicated merchant seaman whose life is tough enough in peace time. But they certainly have the right stuff in time of war. Some of the crew of their ship is Dane Clark, Sam Levene, Peter Whitney, and Alan Hale who really steals every scene he's in.

Action in the North Atlantic is filled with a lot of the flag waving that characterized Hollywood era World War II films. The derring do heroics are kept to a minimum. The situations the seaman encounter are quite real for the perilous undertaking they were involved in.

It could probably be remade today and maybe with some of today's stars showing a new generation what it was like to be a merchant seaman in World War II>