Sealed Cargo would have been a typical war film had RKO done it in 1943 when people were willing to buy these kind of plots. By 1951 this had become clearly outdated. Howard Hughes must have been going through some old scripts and/or story ideas and came up with this one and said it would be a great film still.
Dana Andrews stars in this film as Gloucester fishing boat captain whom we meet still griping because his is deemed a necessary occupation and he can't get in the fight. Still he takes his boat out for a run in the Grand Banks of Newfoundland with a special passenger in Carla Ballenda who wants to go there to meet her dad Onslow Stevens who is in the Canadian Air Force until recently invalided out.
On the way Andrews spots a deserted ghost schooner ship with only her captain still on board, Claude Rains somewhat disheveled. He gives the ship a tow into the small fishing village he was to drop Ballenda off in. But the trading schooner is a disguise for the ship being the mother ship of a Nazi U-boat wolfpack. She's carrying in a secret compartment a load of torpedoes for the U-boats to reload and do their dirtiest fighting with.
This film was so dated by 1951 the audience then must have been stunned. The players to their credit go at it with a straight face, especially Claude Rains who is a sinister figure among the ridiculous. Dana Andrews is a proper tightlipped hero.
Sealed Cargo is a World War II propaganda exercise that someone forgot to make back then and then remembered in 1951.
Dana Andrews stars in this film as Gloucester fishing boat captain whom we meet still griping because his is deemed a necessary occupation and he can't get in the fight. Still he takes his boat out for a run in the Grand Banks of Newfoundland with a special passenger in Carla Ballenda who wants to go there to meet her dad Onslow Stevens who is in the Canadian Air Force until recently invalided out.
On the way Andrews spots a deserted ghost schooner ship with only her captain still on board, Claude Rains somewhat disheveled. He gives the ship a tow into the small fishing village he was to drop Ballenda off in. But the trading schooner is a disguise for the ship being the mother ship of a Nazi U-boat wolfpack. She's carrying in a secret compartment a load of torpedoes for the U-boats to reload and do their dirtiest fighting with.
This film was so dated by 1951 the audience then must have been stunned. The players to their credit go at it with a straight face, especially Claude Rains who is a sinister figure among the ridiculous. Dana Andrews is a proper tightlipped hero.
Sealed Cargo is a World War II propaganda exercise that someone forgot to make back then and then remembered in 1951.