Hell and High Water (1954) on Netflix
Approved19541h 43mActionAdventureDramaThriller
Professor Montel and his colleagues hire former Navy commander Adam Jones to sail a Japanese submarine north of Japan. They suspect a Chinese freighter is supplying a secret atomic base.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.1/102,610 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes80%
Trailer
Plot summary
French scientist Professor Montel disappears, and authorities believe he has defected behind the Iron Curtain. In Tokyo, former submarine commander Adam Jones receives a mysterious package holding $5,000. Montel is there with a group of scientists, businessmen and statesmen who believe the Communist Chinese are putting up a secret atomic base on an island north of Japan. They need proof, so they offer Jones $45,000 to command a Japanese submarine and follow the Chinese freighter Kiang Ching. Jones agrees, provided the boat is armed and he can hire some of his former shipmates. Montel and his assistant, Professor Denise Gerard, sail with him. When word comes that the Kiang Ching has sailed, the boat leaves port before its torpedo tubes can be tested.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Hell and High Water (1954)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Samuel Fuller agreed to direct only after Darryl F. Zanuck let him rewrite the screenplay, provided the original writers, Jesse L. Lasky Jr. and Beirne Lay, approved. Fuller disliked the film but took it as a favor to Zanuck, who had defended the studio against FBI director J. Edgar Hoover's attack over Pickup on South Street.
- France initially banned Hell and High Water on political grounds and also banned Soviet political films, while several other European countries refused exhibition permits to politically themed films to avoid angering both the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
- The U.S. government supplied the nuclear bomb explosion footage that opens Hell and High Water but insisted that certain spectrum colors be removed from the sequence, saying they could reveal nuclear secrets.
- Before shooting, Samuel Fuller spent several days aboard a U.S. Navy submarine, fifteen hours of that submerged, and the trip led him to add scenes of Victor Francen catching his fingers in a hatch and to use submarine red lighting in a love scene.
- Charles Boyer was originally cast as the French scientist Professor Montel in Hell and High Water, a role that went instead to actor Victor Francen.
- Hell and High Water was the feature film debut of Bella Darvi, producer Darryl F. Zanuck's mistress, whose stage surname combined Zanuck's first name with that of his wife, Virginia.
- Cinematographer Joseph MacDonald told Samuel Fuller there was no room on the submarine sets for the red lighting, so Fuller had the equipment placed in the audience's view, arguing few viewers would know what submarine gear looked like.
