September is already gone, and we’re back with another Shamedown. As always, if anyone would like to know what a Shamedown is, CinemaShame’s 2023 statement can be found here, and past Shamedowns can be found here. On with our show…
Early in the Second World War Americans were very concerned with the presence of Japanese and German subs coming to our shores, and naturally it was only a matter of time before someone made a movie about it. Enter 1943’s Submarine Alert, a Poverty Row feature distributed by Paramount. Is it watchable? Heck, yes. Is it memorable? Heck, no.
The movie opens with a random roadster pulling up to a gate at a field, and the farmer at the gate lets them in. Two guys get out, rush into a shed on the property that houses the work of Dr. Johann Bergstrom (Edward van Sloan) and demand that he give them the new submarine transmitter he’s working on.
Naturally, Dr. Bergstrom refuses, but he ends up getting run over by the farmer who let the thugs in to begin with, and who just happens to be driving his tractor through the scene (He’s Japanese, of course. Gee, how not dated in the slightest). The transmitter is somehow thrown free, though, and miraculously enough, it’s completely intact, so the two guys, who are named Dr. Arthur Huneker (Nils Asther) and Vincent Bela (Marc Fleming), make off with it.
And what do Arthur and Vincent (who’s always called Bela, by the way) want with Dr. Bergstrom’s transmitter? They’re Axis operatives and they use the transmitter to clue the Japanese into the departures and locations of American oil barges and other sailing vessels.
The FBI is suspicious, and they figure someone is telling these Japanese subs where to go, possibly by radio transmitter. For some reason they decide the best way to find the source of the sabotage is to have a lot of radio technicians fired and see where they end up getting jobs. Who knows, some of them might be so desperate that they end up workiing for the enemy. It’s worth a shot, right?
One of the newly displaced is Lee Deerhold (Richard Arlen), whose niece is in need of a brain operation. Presuming he was fired for being Canadian(!) Lee pounds the pavement all over town looking for a new job, and finally finds something with a rather shady fellow named Aldine (Dwight Frye), who gives him a hefty advance and a warning to not talk about his work with others too much. Of course, Aldine is a Fifth Columnist, but Lee doesn’t catch on right away.
As timing would have it, Lee also meets Ann Patterson (Wendy Barrie), who just happens to have her purse stolen. Lee takes off after the perp, who drops the purse while bolting across the street. Ann, who is completely unconcerned that a car has run over her purse, agrees to go to dinner with Lee, and naturally there’s a sort of romance.
It all looks sort of suspicious when Lee shows Ann where he works and Lee secretly stuffs some of Lee’s blueprints in her purse, but instead of being another Fifth Columnist, Ann is an FBI agent assigned to tail the radio techs. Her FBI contact is a G.B. Fleming, who’s a great one for ideas but who never seems to make it out of his office. How Ann and Lee just randomly meet on the street and he just happens to be a radio tech doesn’t matter too much. The story must go on.
Lee, of course, finds out in time that his employers are Fifth Columnists and Axis operatives, so it’s probably a good thing that he and Ann are together so much, right? Things get more complicated, than they should due to an abundance of story gaps, Lee shows remarkable athletic ability and Sam Smith-like deductive skills for a radio tech, and it’s a relief when everything turns out all right, but it’s no shock because things can’t be anything but right in the end.
I remember wondering back in January why Submarine Alert wasn’t noticed more in 1943, and now I know why. On the surface Submarine Alert seems to have a lot going for it. While it was a Poverty Row movie that didn’t feature any A-list actors, it did have Roger Pryor, who was a very well-known radio announcer and character actor (Hear Pryor host the December 7, 1941 episode of the Gulf Screen Guild Theater here), plus the movie got some exposure due to sharing a bill with the vastly superior So Proudly We Hail!, but when it came down to it everyone felt very blah about the whole thing.
While the story isn’t terrible and there are some good ideas going on, it’s also incredibly generic, and the unremarkable title isn’t its only problem. There’s nothing to distinguish these characters in the slightest, and it doesn’t help that Lee, Arthur, and G.B. all look alike right down to their mustaches. Not even Roger Pryor’s distinctive radio voice sets him apart, and that’s saying something, but then again, he’s not on screen enough to make a difference.
And it wouldn’t have killed the filmmakers to put in some kind of signing or branding somewhere in G.B.’s office that says FBI, but it looks as nondescript as a furniture store showroom.
What’s really pathetic is that the movie was even considered dated at the time of release. It was filmed in 1942 but wasn’t released until 1943, by which time America had mostly gotten a handle on our enemy-subs-in-American-waters problem.
In fact, Variety, which sports one of the few surviving reviews, not that there were many to begin with, said this:
Submarine Alert is a good example of how a picture can get out of date via extended period between production windup and eventual release. Typical spy meller with usual melodramatic contents has been held on the shelf for a year and in these fast-moving times, emerges as a rather dated piece in general setup. Filler for the duals…There’s a slight tinge of romance…Years ago audiences would have accepted this as a good program actioner, but it’s now on the far end of a cycle of spy tales.
Ouch. It’s safe to say that the eight decades following have not been kind to Submarine Alert, which fell into public domain in 1961. It’s one of the few times I have somewhat regretted my completionist tendencies when it comes to World War Two-era movies, but at least I can say I’ve seen it.
OK, now that that’s done, we can move on to our usual business stuff. And this month’s Pick My Movie tag winner is…
Karen of shadowsandsatin!
Karen’s mission, should she choose to accept it, is to review a film she used to like or dislike but has since changed her mind on. The rules and a banner for the tag can be found here.
Coming up in October (click on the images for more info):
A new Page To Screen is coming up on Wednesday. Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you then…
Submarine Alert is available to own on DVD from Amazon, and is free to stream for Prime customers.
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