Atlantic Convoy (1942) User Reviews

Decent Low-budget flag-waver

[gordonl56 · 7/10 · 15 February 2008]

I had only heard negative comments on this WW2 Columbia Studios programmer. Boy was i surprised how much i enjoyed it! Bruce Bennett headlines as the officer in charge of the naval and sea patrols based out of Iceland. Their job is to keep the Nazi U-boats at bay and escort the convoys taking vital war supplies to England. The Germans of course are less than amused and send several spies into the port. They are to steal a fishing boat and take it out to meet a U-boat. Once there, they will transfer enough explosives to make the boat a floating bomb. When the next convoy comes through they will ram the biggest ship blowing her to pieces and blocking the harbor entrance. Bennett along with John Beal, Larry Parks and a young Lloyd Bridges must take on the Germans in-order to foil their nasty plot. Do they get there in time to save the day? Of course! Quick paced wartime thriller directed by b-film vet Lew Landers who pumped out decent stuff during this era. Landers always got the most out of cast and crew. Loved all the great model work of ships and crashing airplanes. Fun waste of 65 min. (b/w)

Nazis Ahoy

[richardchatten · 6/10 · 28 October 2020]

The title sounds more like a rather low-key British war movie; and it plays rather like one as well, despite the presence of all-American boys John Beal, Larry Parks and Lloyd Bridges.

Bruce Bennett is top-billed, but the earnest young Beal is obviously the real star of this competent little time-filler in which his path crosses that of an offbeat pair of Nazi sleepers assigned to Iceland.

The acting is generally good, the model work not so.

Fascinating if you are a WW2 history buff

[temporalcoldwar24 · 7/10 · 3 August 2019]

Seeing as it was actually made in the war this was obviously meant to be a warning to the public and troops alike that spies and collaborators could be very real and really did walk amongst us. There's one scene that is done so well that it took me completely by surprise. Chilling in it depiction of the ease of switching between a trusted compatriot to a Hitler saluting NAZI. Although the film is not quite as accomplished as works such as Hitchcok's Saboteur, the piece had me watching right to the end when it was shown on the "Movie's for Men" channel here in Blighty. There's not many films on that channel that have me watching for long, but Atlantic Convoy had acting that pulled me in (there's one scene between that main character and his love interest that has strong 1940's flavour romatic overtones) as well as as having a character all of its own. Tally ho !

It's Those Nazis Again!

[GManfred · 20 February 2010]

This was 68 minutes pretty well spent. Seldom do you get an inferior picture from Lew Landers, and on what seems like a 19 dollar budget. This one is about Nazis in the North Atlantic and a Navy plane squadron that tries to ride herd on them, if I might mix metaphors. But guess what? There is a traitor somewhere in their midst who is tipping off the U-boats (I'll bet you guessed). All concerned do a workmanlike job selling the thin plot, especially Base Commander Bruce Bennett. Virginia Field was appealing as the female in the picture and a young Lloyd Bridges is in attendance with little to do. The main character, however, is John Beal and he was bland as well as good.

Apparently this film is hard to come by, as the DVD copy I bought was barely passable in spots - very dark. But I would say it was worth the trouble and money as the movie moved along without hitches or 'bog-down' interludes. Allow for some plot contrivances and don't ask too many questions, as it is only a 68 minute "B" at bargain prices.

Short and tolerably effective war film.

[Jimkidd · 5/10 · 25 September 2017]

Quite reasonable for its period as a B movie on a small budget. Interesting for sight of the young Lloyd Bridges (who hardly has a line in the whole film) and since it is now appearing on UK Channel 48, where it is likely to recur a few times, giving a chance to see a film rarely available - and certainly in better presentation than is suggested for the DVD in the previous review. One element which may entertain some connoisseurs of incidental detail is the presence of perhaps the poshest cabin boy ever to have gone to sea, presumably straight from an elocution class. Passes an hour pleasantly as a period piece.

Fails to ignite

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 22 September 2017]

Atlantic Convoy is a short wartime thriller that follows the fortunes of a group of American sailors based in Iceland and battling the Nazi surge. Their job is to patrol the Atlantic for German submarines, but given this film's low budget most of the action is limited to a single set with a few unconvincing model shots to show off the naval warfare scenes. Worse than the effects is the dullish script, which fails to ignite any kind of tension, and the actors subsequently go through the motions to boot. Watch out for Lloyd Bridges in an early role.

Atlantic Convoy

[CinemaSerf · 5/10 · 12 February 2023]

Bruce Bennett was only ever a competent B-lister, and here he performs pretty much to type in this routine wartime maritime drama. It's his job to lead patrols from Iceland to try to prevent submarine attacks on allied shipping heading to Britain from North America. The Nazis have clocked that this is happening, and so dispatch a team of agents to sabotage the facility and ensure that this useful flotilla is trapped in the harbour for the duration. It's really just a piece of feel-good propaganda with a solid enough story taking an hour to reach a predicable ending that flies the flags and keeps spirits up. I doubt very much whether most of the adequate cast and/or the crew even knew where Iceland was, much less filmed there - but given it was made slap bang in the middle of the conflagration there are enough pyrotechnics and fist fights to keep it moving and it just about does what it says on the tin.

Yeah, go ahead and try to blow democracy off of the map. Not gonna work in a Hollywood movie.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 7 April 2021]

Columbia made a lot of really low budget action films involving the Nazis and Japanese during World War II. Some are better than others with a few absolutely Red shed and the others no more than passable time fillers. This is one of the later, starting off with the heroic Bruce Bennett trying to get a sick young boy to dry land so he can get decent medical attention.

Bennett is unaware that one of his men (John Beal) is a double agent for the Nazis, which will come in handy when Bennett is out captaining a vessel filled with explosives. Beal however has guilt feelings and under the orders of Nazi submarine officer Hans Schumm arranges for the boat to be right on target for the submarine.

Nurse Virginia Field provides the romance and moral lesson, and twists involving Beal change the outcome. Plenty of action, a little bit of comedy and romance, and the presence of future stars like Larry Parks and Lloyd Bridges makes this unacceptable time passer, but there have been much better movies about Nazi sabotage attempts, so this one's easy to forget once you get through it.

one or two inaccuracies

[regthrumper · 4/10 · 12 July 2021]

As an action picture and a flagwaver it isn't bad, but Icelanders might take issue with one or two lines; 1. Captain Morgan tells a nurse treating a child with diptheria "there isn't a doctor on thje island" WHAT? Iceland isn't some rock in the Outer Hebrides, it's a scandinavian nations as sophisticated as any; there were TONS of doctors on the island even back then in WW2!

2. Captain Morgan tells "Sandy" "They (the Nazis) tried to take this place too"; actually they never got the chance; as soon as "they" moved in on Poland. The Brits grabbed Iceland; the Icelanders still have mixed feelings about that; it may have been a factor in the 1972 "Cod War"

Atlantic Convoy

[searchanddestroy-1 · 15 April 2024]

Lew Landers was a very prolific director during many years, several decades, all kinds of films: thrillers, horror, adventure, westerns, comedies. And also war films, especially during WW2, propaganda films. Very short, fast paced, and not widely known movies. Lew Landers was a big provider of such stuff, and those movies were not that bad, if you keep in mind that they all were propaganda. This one is interesting for those who have never heard nor seen any propaganda films of this period. But for those old timers like me who have seen so many of them...Bruce Bennet often played Nazis in war films of the forties.