ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

hwg1957-102-265704 A Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) film from 1943 set on an island somewhere on the equator about a hoodlum from New York who is supplying torpedoes to German U-Boats and a shipwrecked former cop James Xavier 'Jim' Taggart from New York who happens to drift by the hoodlum's boat (and who knew him in New York!) and begins to suspect something is not right. Mix in a bunch of chorus girls and men from various nations and you get something far fetched and rather dull. The plot is thin. For instance, where does Joe Morgan get the torpedoes from? He's not connected to the US Navy. You can't buy them at the local store and he only had one guy, Spike, to help him. All rather silly.Alan Baxter as Joe Morgan is rather insipid and seems to wear the same expression throughout the film. Familiar face John Litel plays the ex- detective as best as the lame script will allow. The great Eric Blore plays Spike with a dodgy cockney accent and brings the only entertainment to the film.Made as a patriotic film to support the war effort which is laudable but it is also laughable.

drystyx There are a few real hidden gems that few people see, because there aren't big name stars, particularly in 1940s and 1950s films.This one is a war time flick about American civilians dealing with German U Boats. The main character, Morgan, is an American hoodlum who is dealing with the Nazis, or is he? We immediately get the feeling that Morgan is not what he seems, but he is in over his head in trying to hoodwink the Nazi Navy, but he doesn't know it. This makes it somewhat credible.He is at odds with a former cop named Taggart, who serves as the stable character of the film. There are many other interesting characters, and great atmosphere, with superb directing, that makes this a hidden gem.The shots all follow logical patterns, and we follow the plot very easy. This is a directing triumph. The scenery is engaging, and this is put together extremely well. We are kept interested in the plot, because of the characters. This is how a film should be made, yet many with much larger budgets can't accomplish what this film did. A must see film, and very surprising, because unlike most Hollywood films, the bad guys don't win all the time.

dbborroughs Base American fugitive Joe Morgan, now a ship's captain is running a reloading base for Nazi submarines. While out on the sea he picks up a man floating in the water. It's a cop who Morgan thought framed him for murder. The cop is now merchant seaman. Morgan takes the cop to St Jean, a small island where pirates once hung out and quick buck can be made. At this point the film becomes the story of what happens on land as Morgan tries to deal with the cop, the girls who want to go back to America and the people on the island. Good but should have been great film is sunk by the actor playing Morgan. How this guy ended up as the lead in anything is beyond me since he's so stiff and wooden that one wonders what cigar store is missing their Indian. Still the film is worth seeing with the sequences involving the Nazi subs and subterfuge around them is good enough to over come any flaws.

wes-connors During World War II, gangster Alan Baxter (as Joe Morgan) fishes officer John Litel (as Jim Taggart) out of the Pacific Ocean, after his ship is torpedoed by Nazis. Mr. Baxter explains he has left the criminal world to become a simple fisherman; and, Mr. Litel reveals he has turned in his badge to join the American war cause. Litel suspects Baxter may have joined the Nazi cause. Fisherman Baxter is also adept at attracting women; Jacqueline Dalva (as Judy) and Fifi D'Orsay (as Maria), for example. "Submarine Base" is a dull, predictable attack on disbelievers in the "Four Freedoms". Eric Blore (as Spike) is mildly amusing, offering to prepare tea and crumpets on Baxter's boat. * Submarine Base (7/20/43) Albert H. Kelly, Alan Baxter, John Litel, Eric Blore