I first saw this movie in the early 1980's when WTBS of Atlanta (Ted Turner's "Superstation", which put itself on the cable TV map as the leading broadcaster of "vintage" movies at that time) started running it during Ronald Reagan's first presidential administration. At that time I found it noticeably unsettling to see the sitting President of the United States and the First Lady appearing in this manner (and maybe all the more so considering how I had voted for him, enthusiastically). Recently I got on a War in the Pacific kick and among other things decided to look at it again for the first time in years. A few points come to mind: 1. To begin with, the personal conflict which is proffered to serve as the backbone of this story is as badly contrived as any in the history of the movies. The executive officer's tirade and the position he took that prompted it was not only unwarranted, it was ridiculous. The behavior he displayed was not only immature, it just plain incompetent for someone in his position. Indeed, Reagan himself seemed to delay way too long himself in pulling the plug when he got the report of the rapidly closing radar contact -- just ask any submariner of the world war II era about these things (assuming you can find one, at this point). About the only kind thing I can say about this premise is that maybe with some detailed massaging of the script around this point there might have been some way to make it more plausible, but there is precious little that is subtly technical in this movie anyway, and indeed, some of the simpler technical aspects they did attempt to address were handled in too weak a way to be clear to a typical audience member who doesn't know anything about the US submarine campaign in World War II.2. Having said that, this movie was not as bad as I remembered from my original viewing, or anticipated on commencing my recent one. There is actually some historical basis for the rest of the plot, and in terms of technical detail there is quite a bit that is pretty accurate, for a movie, even if it is by no means a perfect depiction of combat on a submarine of the era, and it indulges in all sorts of classic submarine movie clichés and characteristically highly improbable plot developments. The reference to "Hellcats" in the title was to one particular trio of wolfpacks of American submarines (which usually operated alone rather than in packs) which was nicknamed the Hellcats and organized for the purpose of a simultaneous mass raid on targets within the Sea of Japan in the last few months of the war, just as eventually indicated in the latter part of the movie.3. Although Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz was as important as anybody else in winning World Wart II, and held as much rank as Eisenhower or MacArthur, he never got the same kind of public attention they did (MacArthur being an egotist who actively courted media attention and Ike just being Ike), and as this movie shows he was not at all telegenic. Having so little star power, and regardless of his historical importance, comparing him to the two generals in connection with his appearance in a film is probably not entirely appropriate. A better question might be why he agreed to appear in it at all; I guess they simply asked him him to, and he couldn't tell the difference between Ronald Reagan and Clark Gable or John Wayne, or between an A-list movie and second-rate matinée-fodder, or maybe he didn't even care. I doubt seriously that in his rise to Pacific Ocean Areas Commander-in-Chief and Five Stars (the highest ranking admiral in an operational command in the history of the Navy) he probably had not paid more than cursory attention to the movie industry, lacking either the time, the interest, or both.On the other hand, I figure that he was willing to lend his appearance to this thing as a way to plug the wartime Pacific Fleet Submarine Force, which didn't earn the nickname "Silent Service" because they were getting the attention and public adulation they deserved. In point of fact, almost one-third of the Japanese warships sunk in World War II were sunk by the US Pacific Fleet submarine force -- even though it amounted to less than 2% of the Navy's total personnel. As if that were not enough, they then went on to sink over 50% of Japan's merchant marine, i.e., commercial shipping, essentially strangling Dai Nippon, the Japanese Empire. As the Navy's designated submarine force historian noted in his official history of the American Pacific submarine offensive, the Atomic Bomb was just the funeral pyre for an enemy which had been drowned at sea. I can't imagine Nimitz, who was also a former submariner himself, not wanting to see that the force finally got the recognition it deserved among all of the up-till-then better-sung heroes of the war in the air and on land and even on the surface of the sea.

You have to feel sorry for anybody who tries to write the screenplay for a submarine movie. How is it possible to avoid all the established clichés? The shattered chronometer, the bursting pipe, the ritual commands, the toy submarine nosing through the murk, the wounded skipper lying on the deck and ordering the boat down, the periscope slicing the sea, the tin can approaching at high speed, the pinging sonar gear, the tense sweaty faces, the walloped camera as the depth charge explodes, the conflict between the CO and the Exec, the playful bantering of the crew, a down-the-throat shot.Added to that are the problems that any Navy movie has. The men have no chance at individual heroism and practically none of being dramatically wounded. (Unless one of them gets appendicitis or has a torpedo fall on him, which happens from time to time.) Basically, the crew are there for comic purposes, so the burden of the drama must fall on the officers. The question can never be about who is going to rush out with his tommy gun and save the rest of the patrol, so it can only be about whose judgment is correct, the skipper or one of his officers. (Sometimes a romantic conflict on the beach is thrown in, but that's rather arbitrary, kind of like the appendicitis patient.) This one isn't too bad, as sub movies go, but it arrives late in the post-war genre. Nobody in it is weak. The enemy is dehumanized, the dialogue trite and exhausted, the action scenes shot on the cheap, and the story is twisted, hard to follow, and sometimes pointless. (Example, midway through the movie a great deal is made of Captain Reagan's having brought back an accurate chart of the Japanese mine fields, but when the subs are sent out en masse it turns out the mines have been moved around so the chart is now irrelevant.) The performers do as well as they can under the circumstances, although Nancy Reagan is definitely in the wrong part here. The right parts would have been those taken by the elderly Bette Davis. The cast has a lot of familiar faces, but none of them memorable because of their having given good performances elsewhere, only memorable because we've seen them so often before.The director should be spanked. A man is knocked about during a depth charge attack and is taken to sick bay. After he's been treated and bandaged up, there are still trickles of blood down his chin and the side of his face. Once winces at such sloppiness. And there is another painfully staged scene, when Reagan and Davis are saying good-bye. Davis's face is in the foreground. She stares unblinkingly just to the left of the camera's lens while Reagan stands behind and speaks to her over her shoulder. This particular part of cinematic grammar must antedate cinema itself.Should you see it? Well -- why not. It's a historical curiosity if nothing else.

Leaden acting. Awful special effects. Every time the submarines go out, so does the sonar (amazing, huh?) A forced conflict between the captain and his executive officer. It also has some of the worst dialogue imaginable, especially in the Ronald Reagan-Nancy Davis scenes. All in all, I would have rather watched an old television test-pattern.

US Navy submarines bravely try to penetrate the heavily-mined entrance to the Sea of Japan, in order to sink enemy shipping which is carrying coal, food and iron from China to the Japanese homeland.On one level a simple war action movie, this film is also a commendable study in the morality of leadership. The central question posed by the movie is whether a commander's duty towards a single seaman in obvious danger outweighs his overall responsibility to his crew.Ronald Reagan is very good as the straight, correct Captain Casey Abbott. Back at Guam he has a girl, a nurse in the military hospital (Nancy Davis, to give her her professional name). When a frogman who is also a rival for the nurse's affections gets into difficulties, Captain Casey has to try to separate personal and professional motivations.Casey's Executive Officer, Dan Landon, clashes with his skipper but by a twist of fate finds himself having to make a very similar decision. Will he call the plays differently?The film works as an uncomplicated war story, but does contain a few infelicities. The submariners are depicted as nice guys in order to enlist viewer sympathy, but this is a little overdone and the sailors come across as childish simpletons, stealing cookies and hiding their dice. Wes Barton has to be portrayed as a popular guy so that we will resent his treatment at the Captain's hands, but to have sailors pleading for a Barton story as he is entering the airlock on a dangerous mission is just unbelievable. The crew of the USS Starfish get sealed orders for a special mission. They are to enter the Straits of Tsushima, land a party on a fortified island, and destroy its defences. Would an ordinary submarine crew really be entrusted with such a specialised task? The frogman sequences are shot in murky water and are hard to follow. Penetration of the minefield channel is effected in a few seconds, when such an undertaking would surely last many hours.For contemporary viewers, much of the film's interest will lie in the unique experience of watching Ron and Nancy onscreen together. They had been married for five years when "Hellcats" was made, and at the time of writing, 42 years later, they are still going strong. It is tempting, if unwarranted, to scrutinize their lines for significant snippets. Ronald Reagan's character is asked what he will do after the War and he announces, "I'm going into the surplus business." Given his leadership style, some would say that was an accurate prediction of both his gubernatorial performance in California and his presidency. Much of Ron's dialogue is an essay on the burden of leadership, and how only a special few are fitted to bear it. Nancy confides to him, "You know I was fresh out of a bad marriage when we met. I wanted to be sure this time. So we played it safe, until I knew you were Mr. Right." In fairness to the Reagans, that, at least, has proved to be autobiographical.