Life on the Ledge
This weekend's review: Gray Lady Down.
Despite being a submarine-centric movie, Gray Lady Down isn’t a reject from my Sub Month project; I just stumbled across it somewhere else and thought the title and summary made it worth seeing. And the movie does wind up containing elements that work or that I like. The problem is, those bits are scattered throughout an otherwise bland experience.
The submarine and gray lady of the title is the Neptune, heading back to port after a long mission. Her captain, Paul Blanchard (Charlton Heston) has been promoted, and his former first officer David Samuelson (Ronny Cox) will be in charge of the sub after he leaves. Since they’re in safe waters off America’s East coast, Blanchard decides to surface and “float” the sub home. This turns out to be a mistake, because a Norwegian ship, which for some inexplicable reason decides to keep moving even though it lost its radar and the night is foggy, smashes into the Neptune and rips a hole in the aft of the sub. The sub sinks, but gets lucky and settles on a ledge above a canyon. It’s at this point that the movie jumps between the survivors on the Neptune doing what they can to stay alive and calm and the rescue efforts, which include flying in a special rescue submarine from California. But complications of course ensue, so a third party gets called in; a Navy Captain named Gates (David Carradine) who’s been working on a small experimental exploration sub called, amusingly for modern viewers, the Snark. This leads to him butting heads with the man in charge of the rescue effort, Captain Bennett (Stacy Keach). But not too much, of course; time is of the essence, after all. Just enough to add a little more drama.
I wouldn’t say there’s anything glaringly wrong with the movie, it’s more that it’s not as gripping as it should be. There are some decent moments of tension, though most of these generally come in the back half of the movie, but there doesn’t seem to be the sort of urgency and intensity you’d expect in a situation like this. It doesn’t help that some of the complications, like Gates being forced to take along a navy sub pilot instead of his assistant or a bit involving a big rock, very much feel like they’re only there to add drama or pad out the runtime. I’d have much preferred cutting those bits out and having the drama center around the difficulties of rescuing the Neptune from its precarious position, especially given the failing systems and the inevitability of its bulkheads failing. Those were established early on and grow naturally as the story progresses; adding in extra conflict is unnecessary unless you don’t know what to do with what you’ve already been given.
I’d also have used that extra time to try to flesh out the characters. The movie suffers from the same ones a lot of military-centric movies do where it’s difficult to tell characters apart unless you recognize the actor (for example, there’s a small part here for Christopher Reeve in what was actually his first movie appearance), they get a lot of screentime, or have some sort of distinguishing look or quirk. You obviously can’t flesh out everybody, but there was more they could have done with the handful they chose to focus on. One of the men has to become the medic with limited supplies and loses some of his patients despite his best efforts-why couldn’t we see more of that struggle? The man on watch when they collided with the Norwegian ship blames himself for not being more alert, which is a believable element but feels like it’s introduced late in the game. Samuelson, meanwhile, blames Blanchard for surfacing the sub and starts to show he might not be a good commander in a crisis situation, but this doesn’t get explored anywhere near as much as you’d think. The script even misses an opportunity with Blanchard; you can tell that he’s putting on a brave face for the men, but the stress and some of the losses are clearly wearing on him. There are at least two moments that really hint at an impending emotional breakdown when he thinks it’s safe to do so, but despite a prime opportunity, it never comes. Adding character moments like this would allow me to care for the crew as individuals, rather than just generically hoping things turn out well for them as a whole. Something movies should strive for in general, I think.
This is definitely one of those movies where what winds up sticking in my memory are the smaller details rather than the overarching plot, so let me talk about some of them. There are two cutaway scenes where two women (who I assume are Blanchard and Samuelson’s wives) are informed about their situation, but then we never see them again, so I fail to see why they were included. Shortly before things go bad, Samuelson is given the gift of a bosun’s whistle to signify his impending captaincy, and while you’d think this would be a Chekov’s gun, it only ever comes up again once in a very underwhelming way, despite there being at least one instance when I could see it coming into play. At one point, the crew is seen watching Jaws, which a) seems an odd choice to watch on a submarine, but I gather that you can develop a warped sense of humor in the military, and b) Jaws had only come out three years earlier. On the one hand, the filmmakers probably got an older print (and permission) for use in the movie, but on the other, it just feels unlikely to me that the military could have snagged a copy and given it to the Neptune in that relatively short amount of time. But then, I don’t know how those things work, so that’s just my personal feelings. And to end on a more upbeat note, this movie definitely pushed the boundaries of the PG rating (though it probably would be classified as PG-13 nowadays). Not only does a character use the word “bullshit” at one point, the movie also contains a pretty amazing line-“I feel like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest!” Not a line you can use in your everyday life, but one I almost want to find an excuse to use someday. Though given that you’d probably use it in a period of great stress or exasperation, perhaps it’s better if I never find an opportunity to do so.
If you like survival or rescue movies, you might enjoy this one. Otherwise, despite some decent moments and performances (Carradine in particular does a solid job), it’s probably better to spend your time on something else. I hate to leave this gray lady down, but sometimes, that’s just the way things play out.
Despite being a submarine-centric movie, Gray Lady Down isn’t a reject from my Sub Month project; I just stumbled across it somewhere else and thought the title and summary made it worth seeing. And the movie does wind up containing elements that work or that I like. The problem is, those bits are scattered throughout an otherwise bland experience.
The submarine and gray lady of the title is the Neptune, heading back to port after a long mission. Her captain, Paul Blanchard (Charlton Heston) has been promoted, and his former first officer David Samuelson (Ronny Cox) will be in charge of the sub after he leaves. Since they’re in safe waters off America’s East coast, Blanchard decides to surface and “float” the sub home. This turns out to be a mistake, because a Norwegian ship, which for some inexplicable reason decides to keep moving even though it lost its radar and the night is foggy, smashes into the Neptune and rips a hole in the aft of the sub. The sub sinks, but gets lucky and settles on a ledge above a canyon. It’s at this point that the movie jumps between the survivors on the Neptune doing what they can to stay alive and calm and the rescue efforts, which include flying in a special rescue submarine from California. But complications of course ensue, so a third party gets called in; a Navy Captain named Gates (David Carradine) who’s been working on a small experimental exploration sub called, amusingly for modern viewers, the Snark. This leads to him butting heads with the man in charge of the rescue effort, Captain Bennett (Stacy Keach). But not too much, of course; time is of the essence, after all. Just enough to add a little more drama.
I wouldn’t say there’s anything glaringly wrong with the movie, it’s more that it’s not as gripping as it should be. There are some decent moments of tension, though most of these generally come in the back half of the movie, but there doesn’t seem to be the sort of urgency and intensity you’d expect in a situation like this. It doesn’t help that some of the complications, like Gates being forced to take along a navy sub pilot instead of his assistant or a bit involving a big rock, very much feel like they’re only there to add drama or pad out the runtime. I’d have much preferred cutting those bits out and having the drama center around the difficulties of rescuing the Neptune from its precarious position, especially given the failing systems and the inevitability of its bulkheads failing. Those were established early on and grow naturally as the story progresses; adding in extra conflict is unnecessary unless you don’t know what to do with what you’ve already been given.
I’d also have used that extra time to try to flesh out the characters. The movie suffers from the same ones a lot of military-centric movies do where it’s difficult to tell characters apart unless you recognize the actor (for example, there’s a small part here for Christopher Reeve in what was actually his first movie appearance), they get a lot of screentime, or have some sort of distinguishing look or quirk. You obviously can’t flesh out everybody, but there was more they could have done with the handful they chose to focus on. One of the men has to become the medic with limited supplies and loses some of his patients despite his best efforts-why couldn’t we see more of that struggle? The man on watch when they collided with the Norwegian ship blames himself for not being more alert, which is a believable element but feels like it’s introduced late in the game. Samuelson, meanwhile, blames Blanchard for surfacing the sub and starts to show he might not be a good commander in a crisis situation, but this doesn’t get explored anywhere near as much as you’d think. The script even misses an opportunity with Blanchard; you can tell that he’s putting on a brave face for the men, but the stress and some of the losses are clearly wearing on him. There are at least two moments that really hint at an impending emotional breakdown when he thinks it’s safe to do so, but despite a prime opportunity, it never comes. Adding character moments like this would allow me to care for the crew as individuals, rather than just generically hoping things turn out well for them as a whole. Something movies should strive for in general, I think.
This is definitely one of those movies where what winds up sticking in my memory are the smaller details rather than the overarching plot, so let me talk about some of them. There are two cutaway scenes where two women (who I assume are Blanchard and Samuelson’s wives) are informed about their situation, but then we never see them again, so I fail to see why they were included. Shortly before things go bad, Samuelson is given the gift of a bosun’s whistle to signify his impending captaincy, and while you’d think this would be a Chekov’s gun, it only ever comes up again once in a very underwhelming way, despite there being at least one instance when I could see it coming into play. At one point, the crew is seen watching Jaws, which a) seems an odd choice to watch on a submarine, but I gather that you can develop a warped sense of humor in the military, and b) Jaws had only come out three years earlier. On the one hand, the filmmakers probably got an older print (and permission) for use in the movie, but on the other, it just feels unlikely to me that the military could have snagged a copy and given it to the Neptune in that relatively short amount of time. But then, I don’t know how those things work, so that’s just my personal feelings. And to end on a more upbeat note, this movie definitely pushed the boundaries of the PG rating (though it probably would be classified as PG-13 nowadays). Not only does a character use the word “bullshit” at one point, the movie also contains a pretty amazing line-“I feel like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest!” Not a line you can use in your everyday life, but one I almost want to find an excuse to use someday. Though given that you’d probably use it in a period of great stress or exasperation, perhaps it’s better if I never find an opportunity to do so.
If you like survival or rescue movies, you might enjoy this one. Otherwise, despite some decent moments and performances (Carradine in particular does a solid job), it’s probably better to spend your time on something else. I hate to leave this gray lady down, but sometimes, that’s just the way things play out.