Hell and High Water (1954)

Director:

Samuel Fuller

Writers:

Jesse Lasky Jr. (screenplay) and
Samuel Fuller (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

6 February 1954 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Thriller

Plot:

A privately-financed scientist and his colleagues hire an ex-Navy officer to conduct an Alaskan submarine...

Plot Keywords:

Submarine | Scientist | Cold War | Enemy | Assistant

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 nomination

Cast

  (Complete credited cast)

Richard Widmark	...	Capt. Adam Jones
Bella Darvi	...	Denise Montel
Victor Francen	...	Prof. Montel
Cameron Mitchell	...	'Ski' Brodski
Gene Evans	...	Chief Holter
David Wayne	...	Tugboat Walker
Stephen Bekassy	...	Neuman
Richard Loo	...	Hakada Fujimori

Runtime:

103 min | USA:99 min (FMC Library Print)

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French | Italian | German

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.55 : 1

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

West Germany:12 (f) | Canada:PG (video rating) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:U | USA:Approved (PCA #16624, General Audience)

Filming Locations:

Arc de Triomphe, Paris 8, Paris, France

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

This marked the feature film debut of Darryl F. Zanuck's muse Bella Darvi, whose stage surname was a combination of the first names of Zanuck and his wife Virginia.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When the landing party is making its escape from the second island, Captain Jones' hat falls off as they are getting in the dingy. The actor is clearly a dark-haired double for Richard Widmark.

Quotes:

Prof. Montel: Each man has his own reasons for living, Mr. Jones, and his own price for dying.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera (1996)

Them Dastardly Reds

Hell and High Water is a great Fifties film with Richard Widmark and his handpicked crew of WWII veterans trying to foil a dastardly Communist plot to start WWIII.

Widmark is a former submarine commander who's been hired to check out a secret base that the Communist Chinese seem to be building in the islands north of Japan. The group that's hired him is some kind of consortium of western scientists who seem to be operating as a secret society. Like Captain Midnight or heaven forfend, the Tri-Lateral Commission.

Parts of the plot and definitely some of the footage is taken from another submarine picture that 20th Century Fox did, Crash Dive. It's so obvious, especially when you have Richard Widmark's voice with no closeups, over the footage from the previous film. That also concerned a secret Nazi base in the Atlantic and the submarine crew that went to clean them out.

Along for the ride in the submarine are scientists Victor Francen and his assistant Bella Darvi who was Darryl Zanuck's main squeeze at the time. Ms. Darvi had a short and tragic life and her story would make a real interesting picture.

Far more interesting than this, though I will say the submarine special effects are outstanding.