8mm Forum: The Atomic Submarine (1959)

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Posted by Dave Ruth (Member # 4596) on February 21, 2018, 03:31 PM:

Picked this up a few months ago off of eBay. I last saw it around 15 years ago and by my recollection it was a very slow moving film with a great ending. Let's see if 30 year old me has a different opinion...

We open and the first thing I notice is Joi Lansing's name in the credits. She is an actress I recently became aware of thanks to an episode of I Love Lucy, and since then I have seen her name popping up everywhere (Baader-Meinhof in full effect). After a submarine is destroyed in the arctic, the US government conducts an emergency meeting at the Pentagon to determine the next course of action. They decide to use the Tigershark, a high tech submarine with nuclear capabilities, to investigate. As they wrap up the meeting there is a hard jump cut to the submarine in the Arctic, and I realize that they cut Joi Lansing's entire part out as well as some character introductions and expository dialogue of the crew as the first board the sub. This made for a rather jarring experience, as I didn't really understand why there was tension between two of the principals. Things pick up again however as the crew has their first sighting of a flying saucer they dub the 'Cyclops.' A game of cat and mouse ensues as they follow the UFO all over the Arctic Circle, eventually determining that it is using the North Pole to recharge it's energy.

In the film's climax, they ram the flying saucer and board it. Here the film really excels as the Cyclops starts killing off members of the crew (Some of which are a bit gruesome for the time!) Our main character finally comes face to face with the alien menace, where the Cyclops makes his plans known: They want human specimens and to take over the world! Our hero injures the Cyclops by shooting him in the eye and escapes to the submarine. The flying saucer then attempts to take off but our heroes dispatch of him with a nuclear torpedo and we fade to black.

Final Thoughts : The film itself came on 2 800' reels. The picture was pretty sharp and I was more than satisfied with the overall image quality. I'm not sure who released this, but my guess would be Mountain Films. As for the film, it's really dull until the last act. There was an overuse of narration and many of the scenes featured people sitting around and talking, but with no real advancement of the characters or the plot. The edit taken out of the film really didn't help either. I checked after screening it and they cut out a full 7 minutes from the beginning. I know that they used to edit features back in the day, but I didn't realize it would just be a solid chunk of the film, I figured it would be strategic cuts here and there. Alas, the ending does leave the film on a positive note, as the set design of the spaceship and the alien really save the picture. I'd give it a 5/10

Posted by Burton Sundquist (Member # 5813) on February 21, 2018, 11:37 PM:

Great review Dave, Being a 50's and 60's Sci-Fi buff myself I don't know how I missed seeing this one! worth it for the Cyclops alone, I'll bet. Any more great screenshots?

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