Hell And High Water (1954)

Hell And High Water ( 1954 ) [US 99min. directed by Samuel Fuller]


Action spy drama starring Richard Widmark. A scientist who's concerned about the US government's preparedness for nuclear war hires a submarine captain to lead a search for communist weaponry in the north Pacific.

Ah, the Red Menace Cold War paranoid thriller :  a genre that threw up some terrific films (and a great deal of nonsense).

This is fairly standard fare in terms of its story - dastardly Commies are plotting something for some reason and it's up to the brave US hero to put a stop to their fiendish plan and make the world safe for truth, justice and the American Way.

Except that Hell And High Water has a few aces up its sleeve to distinguish if from the slew of like-minded films that abounded at the time.

Firstly the script : from a story by David Hempstead and written by Fuller and Jesse Lasky Jr., a man steeped in Hollywood and responsible for a lengthy list of intelligent screenplays, including Hitchcock's The Secret Agent (1936).

The hero is a mercenary, a former US military officer hired by a cabal of businessmen whose sit-com accents imply that they represent the "free" world - British, Japanese, French, US etc. The hired help is given a crew of multi-nationals and allowed to bring in his own team of US submariners to help and assist.

All that's then need to round off the crew is an elder statesman professor (to explain the science of things during the exposition phases) and his assistant who is, of course, a woman. Shove all of these people into the cramped confines of a submarine and there's your film.

Secondly : the leading man. Richard Widmark is a very interesting actor - his work is close to that of a character actor and it would be stretch to describe him as having typical matinee good looks ; but there's a charismatic depth to his performances which is aided by his lived-in face and his slightly stooped and defeated body language. There's a lot of words and technical language for Widmark to deliver here and he pulls it off with considerable ease.

Thirdly : the director. Samuel Fuller was a screenwriter and storyliner who had graduated to directing at the beginning of the fifties (he was 38 when he directed his first film) - he came to Hell And High Water off the back of the under-rated, excellent late-cycle noir Pick Up On South Street (1953) ; producer Darryl F Zanuck wanted the film made quickly and cheaply and to have a leading role for his (alleged) mistress, the talent-free zone  Bella Darvi.

Fuller took all three handicaps and made a virtue of them - the end result was full of tension, action, romance and anti-communist messages, for the most part set within the very real feeling cramped claustrophobia of the submarine.
There's little time wasted on characterisation - with the exception of Widmark the cast exist to hit their marks and get their lines out without fluffing. Bella Darvi is exceptionally bad.

Fuller moved on to more director-for-hire gigs before arriving, a decade later, at the twin career high points of the super-heated gems Shock Corridor (1963) and The Naked Kiss (1964).

A thoroughly decent little film made by an endlessly interesting director.