Yes, the actor from 42nd Street and Murder My Sweet. Wendell Mayes adapted D.A. Rayner's novel and tells of the pursuit of a German submarine by a US destroyer, skippered respectively by a somewhat fed up Curt Jurgens and Robert Mitchum, who respect one another at a distance. Refreshingly the scenes at sea are actually filmed on a destroyer without back projection; lots of long takes give actors the opportunity for... well, acting. Lots of 'give orders twice', 'give orders twice' dialogue.
Slightly swollen though - how many times can you show depth charges blowing up in the water, or a submarine being rocked about. Still, builds to a nice ending.
With David Hedison, Theodore Bikel, Russell Collins, Kurt Kreuger. Photographed by Harold Rossen, scored by Leigh Harline, edited by Stuart Gilmore. 20th Century Fox, CinemaScope.
The original ending was to have been Mitchum trying to save the German from the submarine when the bomb goes off, killing them both and leaving a shot of an empty sea... which would have been fantastic - but of course the studio wouldn't allow it. Cut forward to the seventies where the unhappy ending would have been the only one allowed!
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