On a BEACHHEAD or in a BEACH HOUSE... they always made a perfect score!
1963-03-26
N/A
77 min
The film takes place aboard an American submarine in the Pacific during World War II. The sub's commander is ordered to stop and pick up an underwater demolition team led by Lt. Hayes, whose mission is to locate and destroy a US submarine sunken in a lagoon off Bikini Atoll before the Japanese are able to raise it and capture the advanced radar system on board.
Tab Hunter is "Hayes" - a beefcake marine sent to lead a mission to destroy an American submarine that has been captured by the Japanese, and that contains a top secret radar prototype. It requires a lengthy submarine trip to get to the eponymous atoll, and needless to say there are some fun and frolics en route. Not least, the rather vivid dreams of "Malzone" (Frankie Avalon) who has a go at singing a rather repetitive ditty "The Girl Back Home" which is accompanied by a rather psychedelic-style sequence of dancing girls in bright colours. Aside from those rather nightmarish scenes, the rest of it is all a rather cheap and cheerful wartime drama that reuses some actuality footage, some rather overgrown plastic foliage and the odd submarine interiors that help this trundle along to quite an enthusiastic and flag-waving denouement. Nope, it's nobody's finest hour - not in front of, nor behind, the camera but I didn't really hate it - I found it quite cheesily predictable. Had it been made during the war, then maybe it would have been able to get away with being propagandist. It wasn't, so it can't!
