Submarine X-1 opens with a pre-credits sequence in which a few Allied submariners, obviously survivors of an unseen undersea attack, wash up on shore. It is apparent from their demeanor that one of the survivors, who turns out to be Cmdr. Richard Bolton (James Caan) of the Royal Navy, is blamed by the others for the disaster. Following the credits, we learn that Bolton commanded the submarine Gauntlet, and that most of his fifty-man crew perished when he attempted to take down Lidendorf, a heavily fortified German battleship. Following an inquest, Bolton is told by Vice Admiral Redmayne (Rupert Davies) that he has been absolved of censure. Not only that, Redmayne assigns Bolton a new task: he will be sent to a secret base in Northern Scotland to train a small group of Special Services volunteers with the goal of taking another crack at the Lidendorf, which is parked in a Norwegian fjord.
In Scotland, Bolton trains twelve men, some of whom are also survivors from Gauntlet, to use a new weapon; a new class of submarine called "X" for "experimental." They are small, and made for a crew of just four, at 51 feet long, 35 tons in weight, with a maximum diving depth of 300 feet. Each sub carries two 4,000-pound charges of the explosive amatol - enough to take out a battleship.
Much of the first half of Submarine X-1 is taken up with the stresses of training for the mission; the volunteers drill on diving, hand-to-hand combat, performing difficult underwater tasks without breathing devices, and the all-important task of cutting a large enough hole in steel submarine netting to allow the small craft passage. Lingering resentment toward their leader makes for several scenes of tension, but overall this introductory material comes off as hackneyed; Bolton is thought to be too hard on one man in particular, but eventually Seaman Quentin (Paul Young) and the others become trustful and respectful. The action steps up by the midpoint of the movie, when a squad of German paratroopers drop in on the base and must be eliminated one-by-one. (This incident was a screenwriter-penned elaboration, of course, and did not actually occur). The discovery by the Germans speeds up the Allied need to deploy the three mini-subs and try to destroy the target. Here, the film's low budget becomes obvious; while the underwater miniatures and full-size mockups of the subs are terrific, the above-water high-speed photography of model ships and sets is much less convincing.
Since Submarine X-1 was quietly dumped into theaters as the lower half of a double bill, there was little notice taken by the critics. A reviewer for Variety wrote that, "...the film, admittedly not strong on marquee bait, isn't a bad programmer. A bit quiet on the action side, compared to today's product, it moves quickly enough for family entertainment and has some first-class underwater photography as an added asset." The writer also noted, "Caan's name is the only exploitable one in the cast and his portrayal of the Canadian commander comes over as solid, and almost as underplayed as the British members of the cast." The critic had praise for some technical aspects of the film, but not necessarily the location work, writing, "Art director Bill Andrews' baby subs and other handiwork are excellent, with underwater work particularly outstanding. Location work was done at Loch Ness, Scotland, and scenery adds to [the] pic, but there's little to indicate that it's really Scotland and not Lake Arrowhead."
Overlooked at the box-office in 1969, Submarine X-1 has also received little notice in recent genre surveys. It earned a one word review in Jeanine Basinger's The World War II Combat Film: Anatomy of a Genre (Columbia University Press, 1986): "Traditional." In The Great Combat Pictures: Twentieth-Century Warfare on the Screen (The Scarecrow Press, 1990), author James Robert Parish only acknowledges it as "a modest film."
James Caan would receive only slightly more notice in 1969 as one the stars of writer/director Francis Ford Coppola's The Rain People (1969), but would not gain major attention until he clicked with critics and with the public for both his performance as Brian Piccolo in the telefilm Brian's Song (1971) and his inclusion in the ensemble cast of Coppola's The Godfather (1972).
Producer: John C. Champion
Director: William Graham
Screenplay: Donald Sanford, Guy Elmes (screenplay); John C. Champion, Edmund North (story)
Cinematography: Paul Beeson
Art Direction: Bill Andrews
Music: Ron Goodwin
Film Editing: John S. Smith
Cast: James Caan (Cmdr. Richard Bolton, RNVR), David Sumner (Lt. Davies R.N.V.R), Norman Bowler (Sub-Lt. Pennington, RN), Brian Grellis (CPO Barquist X 3), Paul Young (Leading Seaman Quentin), William Dysart (Lt. Robert Talbot Gogan R.N.R.), John Kellandn (Sub-Lt. Keith Willis, RNVR), Kenneth Farrington (CPO Boker Knowles), Keith Alexander (Sub-Lt. X-3), Carl Rigg (CPO Norman Kennedy)
C-90m. Letterboxed.
By John M. Miller
