If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

A Disappointing Continuation

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

"The Deep Six" is a standard World War II actioner with credible performances almost torpedoed (pun intended) by Hollywood's need for sap, melodrama and comic relief.The film is based loosely on the bestselling novel of the same name by Martin Dibner. "Loose" is being kind. I recommend reading the book and only viewing the movie as a way to pass a few hours until the rain stops.Alan Ladd, who would die six years after this movie came out, plays Lt. Austen, a pacifist Quaker who, nonetheless, joins the Navy. He is sent aboard a destroyer as an assistant gunnery officer (a point made in the book, but left out of the movie). He spends the movie trying to overcome his pacifist ways, finally "being forced" to kill Japanese soldiers to save his shipmates. Alas, the whole moral quandary comes across as placid and lacks energy, much as Ladd's career was by the mid-50's.Ably supported by a veteran cast that includes James Whitmore, Keenan Wynn, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Perry Lopez ("Chinatown"), Nestor Paiva, William Bendix and Joey Bishop in his film debut. Look quick for Jerry Mathers (no, not as the Beaver), Ross Bagdasarian (better known as Dave Seville of "Alvin & the Chipmunks" fame), Robert ("Hideous Sun Demon") Clarke and Edd "Kookie" Byrnes without his comb.Though director Rudolph Mate does a good job with what he has, he is saddled with the book of Hollywood clichés. Bishop's character was added for comic relief as a womanizing sailor with a gal in every port. A hard-nosed officer acts the way he does because he is dying of cancer and wants to get a few of "them" before he dies, so he is forgiven for berating Austen and the crew. Austen leads a rescue mission so he can get the chance to overcome his pacifism under fire. Yada, yada, yada.The best way to describe this movie is "cowardly." It fails to explore any of the themes portrayed in the 1953 novel. Author Dibner based the book on his own exploits aboard the cruiser USS Richmond during the Aleutian Islands campaign.His book is almost just name only for the movie. A big reason is that Alan Ladd is one of the producers. By 1958, his career was on a downward slide because he refused to transition into older or supporting roles. He changed the movie to make his character virtually the only conflict in the movie.Case in point, in that book, Wynn's hard-nosed LCDR Mike Edge is Lt. Mike Edge, a sexual predator of sailors, as well as a virulent racist. Whitemore's commanding officer character is a coward forced back to sea because he makes too many enemies ashore. Austen has Quaker parents but does not espouse their beliefs. Zimbalist's Doc Blanchard is a drunkard.Slobodjian (Bagdasarian) actually lives to the end of the movie and is instrumental in stopping Edge. In the movie, he is rarely shown and gets killed before the halfway mark. Most egregious of all, the character of Henry Fowler, a black steward who is actually the best gunner on a ship (a cruiser in the book) desperate for gunners, is completely eliminated. Racism keeps him from getting that job until Austen convinces Meredith to let the man be a gunner during combat and a steward the rest of the time. But, Edge goads him into violence and tries to murder him twice. You can almost see an actor like James Edwards, Ossie Davis or Woody Strode in the role.The book explored racism, homosexual rape (present but always covered up in the Navy), archaic customs and practices that hampered the Navy during the early years of the war, the simmering resentment felt by Naval Academy graduates toward Navy ROTC and Officer Candidate School- commissioned officers and the continued decision of Naval brass to put unfit or undeserving officers in positions of authority. Also, the movie ends with a whimper of a mission, namely the one with Austen going on a secret rescue mission on a Japanese-held island in the Aleutians. In the book, the cruiser participates in the real-life Battle of the Komandorski Islands, which would have been a far greater climax for the movie.Overall, the film, as I've said, is okay. Joey Bishop's humor gets stale after a while (which is probably why he was always on the fringes of the Rat Pack). You also lose interest in Austen's pacifism, which becomes as interesting as his two-dimensional romance with Dianne Foster (in the book, it was central to Austen keeping his sanity).This is not a movie worth seeking out, but rather one to catch on TCM during an Alan Ladd marathon.Maybe one day, Hollywood will finally make a movie based on the book and not just the title.

This story of a Quaker gunnery officer on a Navy destroyer in World War II bears some resemblance to Howard Hawks' "Sergeant York" but not much. Will Allan Ladd manage to overcome his unwillingness to fire at the enemy and save the lives of his shipmates? Well, it seems to be an on-again off-again switch with Ladd, unlike Sergeant York who simply rendered unto Caesar those things that were Caesar's.Ladd's story seems to be laid out according to the numbers. We first get to know him as an interesting guy, introducing his girl friend (who is completely dispensable) to Amer Picon, a Basque liqueur rarely found in America these days.Ladd may be adventurous in his taste for liquor and, for all we know, his taste in women, but he's not anxious to shoot at an unidentified aircraft when they're at sea. The men disparage him. One of the officers, Keenan Wynne, hates him. His only supporter seems to be "Frenchy" Shapiro, an unlikely character played by William Bendix. Bendix was in real life an old friend of Ladd's by this time. The conflict is cleared up during a landing party in the Aleutian Islands, in which Frenchy is killed and Ladd wounded.The script was partly written by Harry Brown who was responsible for some genuinely unusual -- even arty -- dialog in "A Walk In The Sun." But here it's no better than average. The funny banter among the enlisted men is silly rather than funny. The supporting players mostly do their jobs professionally but Ladd himself adds nothing. He was never a bravura performer and no one expects him to be. But he was doing a lot of booze and barbiturates during this period and although he was only in his 40s he looked puffy eyed and creaky. There's a terrible scene towards the end, when he and Bendix are being brought back to the ship in a lifeboat. Bendix dies in his arms and Ladd can't quite grasp the fact. He goes on mumbling to the dead body and when told that Bendix is gone, he says aloud, "Frenchy? Dead?" And he doesn't sound dazed with pain or shock. He sounds plastered.It's a little painful to watch Ladd walk his way through this routine script because, given a certain undemanding kind of role, he could be quite good. But everything seems to jar in this film. Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians has never seen bright, sunny weather like this. Even the model work in "Destination Tokyo" went to the trouble of simulating the cold and the dreary fog.I guess the message is supposed to be that some things are worth killing for. But, in the worst moment of the film, the hortative notion goes beyond that -- somewhere into the realm of "killing others is fun." Ladd and Bendix are making their escape from a Japanese-held island. Most of the enemy patrol is killed, but one wounded Japanese soldier wanders out into the open, a few feet away. Bendix raises his Tommy gun, then hesitates, grins, nudges Ladd and gestures that Ladd should have the privilege and fun of shooting and killing a wounded enemy. Killing wounded enemy soldiers and airmen was routine on both sides in the Pacific theater, but turning it into the equivalent of an amusement park ride is something else.

This movie was really quite bad. No action, the conflicts were not well dramatized. Alan Ladd did not seem to be giving much of an effort here at all. He looked about 15 years older than his 45 years. However, there are a lot of famous actors in it and only fun part of this was in guessing their names. "Hey, that was Jerry(the beaver) Mathers!" From beginning to end this movie never really got off the ground. The pacing seemed very slow and if I'm not mistaken it was done with a small budget. At one point the destroyer they were on changed to an aircraft carrier during a Japanese strafing run. All the action scenes and scenes were rushed and seemed uninteresting. William Bendix was probably the best of the bunch at the time. The story lines of the side characters were never developed to a point where anyone could care about them.

The cast turned up just to collect a paycheck, which is a shame, because it is a fine collection of actors. However this movie is representative of tired scripting and even worse, tired and uninspired directing. Alan Ladd looks almost embarrassed on occasions to be associated with this turkey. This film is only worthwhile to make you appreciate when you see a quality movie of the genre.BEVARE (sorry Bela) watch this stinker at your own risk.