PT 109 (1963) on Netflix
Approved19632h 20mBiographyDramaWar
Lieutenant John F. Kennedy uses his family's influence to reach the Solomon Islands and take command of PT 109. Ensign Leonard J. Thom and a skeptical crew set about restoring it.
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- Netflix2.6/5
- IMDb6.7/103,306 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes64%
Trailer
Plot summary
In August 1942, American forces are fighting the Japanese across the South Pacific. John F. Kennedy, a lieutenant junior grade fresh out of PT boat training at Melville, Rhode Island, leans on his family's connections to win a posting to the Solomon Islands, then lobbies for a command of his own. He is handed the well worn PT 109, and Commander C. R. Ritchie, the base maintenance officer at Tulagi, is unimpressed by the untested young officer. Kennedy sets about making the boat seaworthy with Ensign Leonard J. Thom as his executive officer and sailors such as "Bucky" Harris and Edmund Drewitch, skeptical of him at the start. The crew is then sent to evacuate a party of paramarines pinned down on a beach, with too little fuel aboard for the trip back.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about PT 109 (1963)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- PT 109 was the first commercial theatrical film about a U.S. president released while he was still in office, Franklin D. Roosevelt had only been shown in small roles during his administration, and it came out five months before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.
- President Kennedy set three conditions for the film: that it be historically accurate, that its profits go to the survivors of PT 109 and their families, and that he have the final choice of lead actor. He picked Cliff Robertson after watching the screen tests.
- Cliff Robertson was stockier and 13 years older than Kennedy had been in the South Pacific, but Alvin Cluster said the President chose him because he was young-looking yet mature enough that the world would not think the President was being played by a parking lot attendant, a dig at Edd Byrnes, who played Kookie on 77 Sunset Strip.
- Actors considered for the lead included Peter Fonda, who objected to doing his screen test as an impersonation of Kennedy's voice, Warren Beatty (Jacqueline Kennedy's choice), and Jeffrey Hunter, who had just finished playing Jesus Christ in King of Kings.
- No surviving 80-foot Elco PT boat could be found for the film, so former U.S. Army Air Forces 85-foot crash rescue boats, designed by Dair N. Long in 1944, were converted to resemble them, and AT-6 Texan trainers stood in for Japanese Zeros.
- Exteriors were shot at Little Palm Island in the Florida Keys; power and fresh water had to be run out to the island for the production, which allowed the resort there to be built years later.
- The construction of the film's sets, and the boats and other equipment present during shooting, gave rise to rumors of another U.S. invasion of Cuba.
