Why anyone would want to waste their time with "Up Periscope" beats me. True, it does feature a mildly exciting climax, but you have to wait impatiently through nearly two hours of relentless tedium! It's true too that the script has a few mildly witty lines, but what's a witty line or two surrounded by three or four thousand dull ones? Condensed to a reel or a reel and a half, Up Periscope might make a fair featurette, but at 112 minutes...Made on the cheap with obvious studio and stock shots, "Up Periscope" is further burdened with a second-string cast including Edd Byrnes as a medical orderly and Andra Martin as the love interest. However, despite her prominence in the credit titles, Miss Martin's role is slight. Behind-the-camera personnel are no better. The photography is tired and the direction TV-weary with lots of monotonous and uninteresting close-ups as the characters talk and talk and talk.I never understood the cinema appeal of James Garner. As a general rule, television stars, no matter how super-popular they may be on the box, fail to achieve anything like that sort of success on the big screen. Remember George Gobel? Or Alan Young? Or Edd Byrnes? Charlie Drake? Judy Cannon? Benny Hill? Merv Griffin? The only television people I can think of who made it really, really big on the big-big screen are James Garner and Norman Wisdom.

"Up Periscope" is an unusual submarine movie. This is because, in general, submarine movies are sensational--tense, exciting and enjoyable. Such films as "Run Silent, Run Deep", "Destination Tokyo" and "The Enemy Below" are classics...as are almost all sub films. Yet, sadly, "Up Periscope" is an adequate film and nothing more. The problem I had with the film is that there are two plots--one completely unnecessary and the other mildly interesting. When the film begins, Lt. Braden (James Garner) is trying to convince a lady to marry him even though they've only known each other for a few days. This goes on for a while....and has nothing to do with the other story. Braden is transferred to a submarine for a secret mission. Using his amazing demolition and underwater skills, he's to sneak onto a Japanese island...and he needs to hurry lest the sub leave without him.The romance just seemed tacked on and was an excuse to show a good looking woman in a bathing suit. The other story was routine and not much more....hence my overall score of 5. Purely a time-passer and not much more.

UP PERISCOPE is a US-made WW2 submarine film with a routine plot but assured performances from its handful of stars to see it through. The film features a youthful James Garner playing the square-jawed lieutenant of an American submarine in Japanese waters. Edmond O'Brien is the gruff captain and the mission is an intelligence one as the crew are sent to capture some Japanese codes which will prove essential to victory.Before the mission really begins, Garner takes time out to romance a female intelligence agent and at the same time enjoy some camaraderie with the male crew members, one of whom is a very youthful Warren Oates playing a guy who always seems to be eating. The action is mainly saved for the latter part of the production and is effective, but hardly classic material.

I was expecting a fairly mediocre and routine "sub flick" and was pleasantly surprised to find an above average and pretty engrossing movie. The story has some grit and conflict, especially in the hostility of the crew for its "by the book" captain, played with convincing war-weariness by the always-reliable Edmond O'Brien, whose efforts are matched by a very young James Garner. Production values are high, and it's worth catching it in letterbox format. Some of the mistakes in commando procedures have been noted, to which I would add the lack of facial camouflage, as Garner's strikingly white face floats conspicuously above the water in his nighttime swim, an easy target for lookouts. None the less, a pretty good war flick.