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Admirable film.

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Well this is one movie title that's certainly not misleading. There's tons of action in this gripping WW2 movie about the Merchant Marine. I might even go so far as to say it's got the best and most realistic action sequences from any WW2 movie I've seen. I'm talking about movies made during the era not stuff made decades later with a gazillion dollar budget, of course. The story's about an American tanker crew that survives their ship being sunk by a German U-boat and spend eleven days adrift at sea before being rescued. They later return to sea on a Liberty ship leading a convoy. Once again they have to deal with the Nazis. What's not to like? It's a WW2 movie with colorful Warner Bros. character actors Alan Hale, Dane Clark, Peter Whitney, and Sam Levene backing up Humphrey Bogart and Raymond Massey. There's only a couple of (minor) female roles, played well by Julie Bishop and Ruth Gordon. Yeah the plot's pretty basic and the characters may seem clichéd but it's all put together so well that I didn't mind. There's something to be said for using a successful formula. The script is great with lots of funny lines and stirring speeches. Good music, both score and a nice rendition of Night and Day from a dubbed Julie Bishop. The photography is beautiful. The special effects are exceptional. The direction is terrific, especially in those spectacular action scenes. This is all the more remarkable when one considers director Lloyd Bacon didn't get to finish the picture. Bogart is great (as always) and his fans will love this one. Pretty much anyone who enjoys WW2 movies, particularly those from WB, will like this a lot. It's an emotional, exciting two hours of solid entertainment.

"Action in the North Atlantic" was a disappointing, predictable, trite propaganda film. I can only assume that Humphrey Bogart did this movie out of patriotism, for this is no Casablanca or Maltese Falcon.There isn't really a plot, I cannot imagine how one could even write a spoiler about this movie. After the first ten minutes you know the rest of it. It essentially glorifies the US effort to deliver logistics across the Atlantic, but does not in any way expound on this objective (other than that it's a good thing that we deliver).The acting is contrived and formula-like, the minor characters frequently get on political soapboxes; pontification about God, country and President Roosevelt abound.I'd recommend this movie only in the context of seeing how Hollywood supported the US war effort.

A cracking formulaic war propaganda piece that brings notice to the often forgotten work that the Allied Merchant Marines did during World War II. Lloyd Bacon directs with John Howard Lawson adapting from Guy Gilpatric's story "Heroes Without Uniform". Leading the cast list are Raymond Massey, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Hale, Dane Clark & Sam Levene. While Ruth Gordon & Julie Bishop play the two "filler" female roles of the girls left to fret back on dry land.The story follows the crew of the cargo tanker Northern Star, who at the start of the film are torpedoed by the Nazis in the North Atlantic. Out on a raft without food and water for eleven days, the surviving members of the crew are finally rescued by the Navy. Once recuperated, the men wait at home for another ship and finally get assigned to the Sea Witch, which is required to take supplies to Murmansk in the Soviet Union. What follows is a perilous journey as the Sea Witch is engaged in battles by a German "wolf pack".Brisk in pace, Bacon's film contains great 1940s special effects and has a number of excellently constructed action sequences. Successfully blending real life footage and model work with the work on the Warner's lot, the makers have managed to craft a piece that shows propaganda movies are not all boorish excuses for flag waving. Yes from the outset we are in no doubt that the German's are dastardly devils, the first twenty minutes of the film is both exciting and tense as "The Hun" try to obliterate our protagonists in a whirl of explosions and burning oil slicks. But at its heart is a very humanistic tale of a group of men from a cross section of ethnic backgrounds trying to keep it together as they do their bit for the war effort. These characters are well formed, and thankfully they are acted accordingly by the largely on form cast. Given a thumbs up over the years by veterans of the Merchant Marines, the film was also used as a recruitment tool for said service. That in itself is reasons for the movie to hold its head up high. That it's also a ripper of an action movie, with very interesting characters, doubly makes this a fine entry in the propaganda led genre of 40s war movies. 7.5/10

My grandfather fought in the U.S. Merchant Marine and lost half a finger while at it, so I perked up when I saw that this film focused on these oft-forgot veterans of WWII. There sure aren't many films about them. In fact, they weren't even given the right to be buried as war veterans until 1988, when President Reagan signed the bill.And happily, it's a solid, interesting film. It doesn't shy away from showing how vulnerable these ships were, how many casualties they could take. Real attention is paid to individual members of the crew. Each one comes from a different walk of life, and they have their own views on the war and whether or not they want to be here. Raymond Massey does a fine job as the experienced, honourable captain, and Bogart takes a break from his dark, cynical characters to play the friendly and wise first-mate. He's still Bogart, of course -- a number of his lines have some of the trademark eloquent wit that he was given in his previous movies (such as Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon). He's worldly-wise, but not grim or disillusioned. He's a bit of a womaniser, but perhaps is not as loose as he pretends to be. He's firm and doesn't believe in nonsense, but has none of the hard cruelty or anger that comes out in his noir or "insane" role (i.e. Treasure of the Sierra Madre). He's as likable and dependable as ever. The other performances range from blandly adequate to quite good, with Alan Hale being as wonderfully likable and friendly as ever as the curmudgeonly comic relief. (love a good alliteration there, heh) The film is quite long, surprisingly. It takes its time to do scenes right, and give things weight. Only one element of the story was rushed, that being Bogart's romance. It doesn't last long, and is rather superfluous anyway. But the film never dragged too much. It could have been trimmed in some areas, but does not suffer badly for it.The special effects are quite impressive, actually. They must have used models for the ship and submarine battles, but darn if they don't look good. There is one shot in particular, near the end: a boat is ramming a surfaced submarine, and the impact is filmed from underwater. It is absolutely convincing, and very dramatic.And yes, it is a patriotic film, though not a fake or overbearing one. These men knew what they were fighting for, and in the movie they talk about it quite a bit. At one point, Bogart expresses the main reason why the experienced merchant mariners keep voluntarily returning to their ships instead of taking constant leave to be with their families. The essence of it is this: "We've spent a lot of time around Nazi ports, and we've seen what they're doing." Keep in mind, this movie was made in 1943, before the full horrors of the Holocaust were known. The Allies didn't know all that was happening yet, but they knew enough to be sure that it had to be stopped.This is not an extraordinary classic, but it is a very fine film, and a good one.