GREAT MOVIE!!
My family and i really enjoyed this movie. I know you've heard it; "they don't make them like that anymore". These were truly the greatest generation. Oh yea, and thank you Amazon for carrying it and shiping it so fast.

"Silent, But Deadly"
One of the most suspensfully intense movies ever made. Gable and Lancaster are perfect in their roles, and there is a great supporting cast. The eerie sounds of the sonar equipment and the feeling of claustrophobia in the interior of the submarine add to the intensity. If you have never seen this great WWII flick, you should add it to your viewing plans.

Look to the seas and look back to the good old days
When you look at 1958's RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP directed by Robert Wise you can see the intellect, craftsmanship and most importantly the emotionally charged energy that went into the making of this film. Director Robert Wise was always the consummate professional consistently delivering a solid, engrossing and entertaining motion picture. Robert Wise was a director with no discernible directorial style yet he took whatever the budget would allow and he always delivered a solid film time after time. I believe his background as a film editor gave him a very dynamic approach of taking all the elements that go into a film and he had the cohesive ability to meld these into a singular piece of a highly visual and often memorable piece of cinematic art. RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP is a fine example of this. I saw this film when I was just a little kid yet the visuals remain in my memory as clear as when I first saw it. Jack Warden's everyman performance mirroring the sentiments of the viewer and Clark Gable's apparent obsessive nature as the Captain who is troubled by a subliminal realization that he just can't bring to the surface are so memorable. " We are in the Bungo Straits."

An aging legend and a new generations star
It's interesting to note that at 6'1'' and 6'2'' Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster would have been too tall for submarine duty in WWII. Watch the scene on board the sub in the confines of the captains cabin. Its a credit to Lancaster that when Gable erupts from his desk and shoves his face into Burts that Lancaster stands his ground. Even though he was not a man who was easily intimidated on screen or off, It wasnt easy with some one as forceful as The King. The powerful personalities of these two Hollywood superstars propel this classic war drama.

true to the times
I saw this movie the first time with my father in the theater a long time ago when it was released. I saw it the second time yesterday on this DVD. I suppose I've changed a bit.

The movie is foolish and implausible. It's full of trite stereotypes of enlisted men ( fools, morons, etc ). It's sexist ( pat the butt etc ). I don't discern that it's racist except that it's about white americans against asians ( yes there was a black or two on the US sub.....didn't know this level of integration existed in WW2 ).

Our hero captain survives the implosion by depth charge of his sub while running DEEP. How he makes it to the surface, survives there, and is rescued isn't shown.

Everytime the willy Japanese are about to be shown onscreen we hear some pseudo oriental music.....they are kinda winning but , of course, our hero beats them at their own game 'cause he's the good guy.

The interior shots of the american sub are entertaining....lots of close ups on what I suppose are complicated analog computers that calculate range etc.

If you want to see an identical period piece...a near clone of this movie buy and watch the much better "Forbidden Planet". Saw that with my father too when it came out in, I think, '56. Same sexism, same classism but even more virulent. The enlisted men on the spacecraft are perfect dunces in most respects. Even the officers behave like billygoats in rut.

Ah, the fifites. That generation fought a really nasty world war and when they came home they wanted simply to see certain things about it and wanted to avoid other things. Did I mention I hate background music in war movies?

The movie is worth watching purely as a time capsule from a much different time. As for teaching anything actual about what happened in WW2 submarine warfare I am not so sure. I have to hand it to those guys though. Living through the opening scenes really shows what men were made of back then.....first your sub implodes at 300 feet , then you die, then you arrive at the surface clinging to floating debris, then you are rescued off camera prior to dying of exposure, sharks, or dehydration.

But , then, this movie is not about realism. It's about us winning and them losing in a fully orchestrated morality play.