Morning Departure (1950)

Overrated and overhyped

One of the best films i have seen

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

I am watching this movie with a 96 year old Royal Navy veteran.Now, when the sub clears the bridge, ready to dive, the officer puts his foot on a lever. The lever closed the voice tubes. Now, in every American movie, we never see this. I wonder if our subs USED voice tubes or microphones. Or we just never showed it. The sub was a T type. Also, the chlorine gas was from sea water getting into the batteries. Now, the movie was quite realistic, with a few quirks. The sub is reported overdue..... and then we cut to the guys on the sub waking up. I don't think they were knocked out for two hours.Acting is excellent, and the sets are good for the budget. A nice realistic touch is when the men got into the 'gun hatch'. Clearly showed how cramped it was, and opening the valves. Nicely done.Nine stars!PS, the RN man was on the Trenchant, a British sub in WWII. He had quite an adventure.

One of the finest and most realistic military dramas that ever came out of the English speaking cinema was Morning Departure about Captain John Mills on a British submarine that goes to the bottom, but intact. Mills faces a challenge that would daunt any captain in this drama keeping his crew together until rescue comes.Some definite influence of In Which We Serve is present here as well, especially accented by the presence of Mills and Richard Attenborough in the cast. The submarine is based in a small English coastal town where the officers and crew live as well. The domestic scenes with some of them including Mills and wife Helen Cherry (who was Mrs. Trevor Howard in real life) are taken straight from In Which We Serve.When disaster strikes the men with the exception of Attenborough behave like the professional sailors they are. Attenborough who volunteered for submarine duty because of the extra pay suffers from claustrophobia, carefully hidden except in a crisis it comes out. Eventually Attenborough proves to have the right stuff as well.The film benefits from the highly realistic rescue scenes when the Navy learns of the disaster. It also benefits from the superb playing of Mills and the rest of the cast. No John Wayne heroics here, these are just ordinary people doing their jobs under extraordinary circumstances. Even Mills has some trouble keeping it together, but he does.The ending is at once harrowing, intense, and sublime. It caps off a fine bit of motion picture film making that everyone associated with this film can be proud.

Life for these submariners isn't easy above or below the ocean waves. Above the ocean waves it begins by showing some of the crew on leave with their family and the problems and decisions that they face in their personal life such as whether to stay in the navy or not. Below the waves what begins as a routine training mission quickly gets out of hand due to a disturbed mine going off.It turns into a race against time to free the crew before their air runs out. It is complicated by faulty escape equipment where only some of the crew can quickly escape through the hatch when they are initially discovered by rescuers. The turn of a card can literally determine the fate of the men. A low card leaves an unlucky few to wait in the submarine to see if they can be raised to safety. The weather now combines with time to become their enemy and the race is on.The action takes place in a confined space and the way people come together in a crisis is deftly handled. A solid although not a totally original performance from John Mills who as the commander tries to get his crew to safety and maintain discipline under difficult circumstances. A much underrated Nigel Patrick does well as his second-in-command; he acts alongside Richard Attenborough with whom he is reunited in the excellent League of Gentleman many years later. Overall it is an enjoyable and watchable film.

A Rank production, with passable production quality and excellent acting. Much stock footage and a healthy amt. of rear projection, par for keeping costs down on Rank dramatic quickies. Since the screenplay was adapted from a play, its stage origins are still somewhat apparent. The performances of Mills, and a very young Attenborough, plus seemingly one-half the J.R. Rank stable of regulars are very good. The sets and costumes were surprisingly ratty--long in the tooth! Still, this is only a few years after the war, and things were still very hard-up in England. Ultimately, this is a "talker" and not an "actioner", and it does fairly well for all that, though not spectacularly so. The ending, to me, disappointed. I do recommend this for classic movie fans.