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Gray Lady Down (1978) More at IMDbPro »

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Overview

User Rating:
6.0/10   974 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
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Director:
David Greene
Writers:
David Lavallee (novel)
Frank P. Rosenberg (adaptation)
more
Contact:
View company contact information for Gray Lady Down on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
April 1978 (USA) more
Genre:
Drama | Thriller more
Plot:
A Navy Captain uses his experimental Snark to reach a nuclear submarine stuck on an ocean ledge. full summary | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
NewsDesk:
Charlton Heston Dies at 84
 (From IMDb News. 6 April 2008)
User Comments:
Memories of the Thresher more (19 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Charlton Heston ... Capt. Paul Blanchard

David Carradine ... Capt. Gates
Stacy Keach ... Capt. Bennett

Ned Beatty ... Mickey

Stephen McHattie ... Murphy

Ronny Cox ... Cmdr. Samuelson
Dorian Harewood ... Fowler
Rosemary Forsyth ... Vickie
Hilly Hicks ... Page
Charles Cioffi ... Adm. Barnes
William Jordan ... Waters
Jack Rader ... Harkness
Antony Ponzini ... Caruso

Michael O'Keefe ... Harris
Charles Robinson ... McAllister (as Charlie Robinson)
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Additional Details

Parents Guide:
View content advisory for parents
Runtime:
111 min
Country:
USA
Language:
English | Norwegian
Color:
Color (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono (Westrex Recording System)
Certification:
Iceland:L | Singapore:PG | France:Unrated | Netherlands:12 | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | USA:PG | West Germany:12
Filming Locations:
San Diego, California, USA
Company:
Mirisch Corporation, The more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Feature film debut of Christopher Reeve. more
Goofs:
Factual errors: When Neptune bottoms out below her collapse depth, the Captain says, "Thank God and General Dynamics." No submariner ever refers to the Groton, Connecticut shipyard as "General Dynamics" (which is the parent company) but by its original name: "Electric Boat" (formerly the Electric Boat Company, and now a division of GD) more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in Catch and Release (2006/II) more

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User Comments

   (Comment on this title)
5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful.
Memories of the Thresher, 28 December 2007
7/10
Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

Gray Lady Down is one of the better Seventies disaster films and it's also one of the better films that Charlton Heston did in the later part of his career starting in the Seventies. Heston like so many other of the stars of the studio era was finding fewer and fewer decent film properties to do. This was one of his better choices.

Heston plays the skipper of a nuclear powered submarine which goes down in a collision. Things get further complicated when the 'gray lady' is buried partially in an undersea mudslide, blocking the escape hatch.

The Naval Rescue service is on the job however, but this will prove a difficult task.

The film is divided evenly between Heston and his crew as Heston tries to keep morale up that the survivors will be rescued and on the surface rescue vessel where a conflict between two captains hampers the rescue effort. Stacy Keach is the captain of the rescue vessel and his conflict is with Keith Carradine also of captain's rank who's developed a special undersea two man vessel that can scoop the dirt off the gray lady.

Special mention should go to Ronny Cox who is Heston's number two and also not really getting along with him, but who steps up to the plate in a most heroic fashion.

In 1978 when Gray Lady Down came out there were still memories of the submarine U.S.S. Thresher which went down in 1963 with all hands lost in one of the U.S. Navy's worst disasters at sea. A lot of what you see in this film was developed because of that tragedy.

Gray Lady Down is a no nonsense sea rescue film with the impossible situations that characterized a lot of the films of this type kept out of the story. It's one of the best and yet most unsung of the disaster films of the decade. Should be seen more often. Charlton Heston and the rest of the cast do a fine job on this film.

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