The Bedford Incident (1965)

OK, I wasn't that thrilled about the concept of yet another movie about Americans chasing Soviet submarines in the heat of the cold war. Well - I was wrong, The Bedford Incident (dir. James B. Harris) is one of the eeriest works in the genre, being more a psychological account of looney patriotism than fast-pacing adventure. When I started watching, I didn't know what year the film was from. After a little while, I realized this could not have been a McCarthey-era big production. And of course it isn't (it's from 1965). This is by no means an artistic masterpiece, but what makes the film special is its reliance on facial expressions, settings (the coast off Greenland!) and haunting sound (navigation beeps) rather than story-driven dialogue. A shortcoming, perhaps, is the slightly overstated characters: the nosy journo, the solemn German guy, the Professional with Issues, the Kraazy captain (who is by the way called Finlander). A charitable reading, however, classifies the movie as a satire about military aggression in the style of Dr. Strangelove. - The ending is what it should be, no sugary consolation.