Submarine Film Festival

[Karen D.]

Hi All,

Our new CEO (Rolf Johnson) wanted me to ask a question: have any of you ever hosted a Submarine Film Festival? If so, how did you organize them and were they successful! He's been working with a local theater to plan one here next summer and was just curios if anyone has tried this before.

Thanks!
Karen

[Jay Boggess]

I've never seen a sub film festival, but can certainly suggest a few movies - some directly sub-related, some tangentially, some to stay FAR FAR AWAY from.

Run Silent, Run Deep - Clarke Gable and Burt Lancaster - great WWII fleet boat scenes, good drama, some glimpses into life among the crew.

Das Boot - Best U-Boat movie around.  Hard to watch, the crew goes thru so, so much in 2 1/2 hours of submarine claustrophobia.

U-571 - STAY AWAY! That's all I'll say. Instead see:

Enigma - Fictionalized life of Bletchley Park and British code breaking of the German Enigma machine, especially with regard to breaking the "Shark" U-boat cipher.  Some surfaced U-boat scenes.

Ice Station Zebra - Said to be Howard Hughes favorite film - Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoonan, Ernest Borgnine and Jim Brown all on a nuclear submarine all trying to get a Russian spy satellite landed near the North Pole. 

The Hunt for Red October - Sean Connery and VERY YOUNG Alex Baldwin - my ex-navy nukes I work with can find a few things terribly wrong with it, but its awfully entertaining.  Besides, Tim Curry of The Rocky Horror Picture Show playing a Russian doctor???  Amazing!

Finally, in War and Remembrance there are many scenes of Pacific Fleet subs throughout the gazillion-part mini-series.  They used Bowfin out of Hawaii in the filming.

Jay Boggess

[Darrin]

Karen,

This has been a tough one for me to answer, I have seen them done onboard the Torsk during work weekends and I have seen them done in various different places during a subvets reunion parties.. it for me always made sense to do them onboard the boat if she was cool enough to have a them and part of her local crew stay overnight, so that those could remember their youth and for the younger generations see what it ment to be on a boat at sea.

Personally when the Torsk was cool enough below and the ice cream machine was running you could feel her decks alive once more and feel her at sea watching the midnight movie or the after dinner movie.. Even when she was hot and humid you could feel her decks awash and a crew answering bells once more..

IMHO, Have your movie marathon onboard and you will see people leave with a different appreciation of what we did and what we are doing onboard, Offer an overnight adventure showing what the crews went through.. There is no hall rental and you can repeat this throughout the summer especially if you invite the media on the first one to show them what you are trying to do.

Just my .02 cents worth, which in today's market means less than nothing...

Darrin

[Karen D.]

Thanks to both of you for your responses! They will be shared with the committee that is putting this event together. I do like the idea about showing the movies on the boat and maybe we can work that in somehow, but he is thinking of a much bigger audience that won't fit on the boat. We have an old, renovated theater just two blocks away that is willing to partner with us on a big event next summer. If it's a hit maybe we can offer smaller ones on the boat some time. I agree with you that that is the best environment, because I always loved watching movies onboard when I was working the overnights years ago.

Karen

[Jim]

He He.  Down Periscope! for some light-hearted fun.

[Mark Sarsfield]

We have a period theater in Muskogee not far from the boat that allows you to bring in your own movies with the stipulation that anyone from the public can watch, also.  We did this about 3 years ago and made it a liberty night with everyone in uniform.  Hopefully, we can do it again.

[Jay Boggess]

I thought of two additional Fleet Boat movies.  "Operation Pacific" (1951) where John Wayne solves the Mk14 torpedo exploder problem.  The other is "Destination Tokyo" (1943) where Cary Grant penetrates Tokyo Bay to help guide the Doolittle Raiders to their targets.  "DT" is FULL of jingoistic propaganda (to be expected since it was made during the war), but was drawn partly on some of the exploits of Silversides, including the famous appendicitis operation on the wardroom table.  I especially remember a scene where the crew fishes out a "dirty Jap" pilot, who proceeds to stab one of the sailors trying to get him aboard.  More death ensues.  When its all over, Capt Cary Grant is consoling one of the sailors with a line of "that Jap pilot had been trained since he was a little boy to stab someone in the back"...

Jay Boggess 

[Evil Tracey of Torsk]

In "Destination Tokyo," no one in the crew seems to notice that the skipper talks funny....

[Karen D.]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone! I was finally included in the meeting for this event and it's bigger than I initially thought. Everyone in town is getting involved, which is really cool. The director of the old theater (that will show the movies) is friends with a guy from Run Silent, Run Deep. The guy that was crushed by the torpedo I guess and he'll be here. A local art museum will have host a navy art exhibit, they want to try to have a venetian boat parade in the river and have food vendors for that as well. This is turning out to be a big submarine weekend! Will share the details as they develop. 

[Jim]

Very Nice!  One of the advantages to having your boat in the water!

[Darrin]

BZ to you Karen, keep it up!!