Review of Gray Lady Down (1978) by Paul G — 10 Jun 2007

Director: David Greene Starring: Charlton Heston, Johnny Cox, Dorian Harewood, Stacy Keach and Christopher Reeve Color, 1978.

Gray Lady Down is yet another disaster movie from the seventies, a decade which spawned a dozen such movies. Hollywood executives green-lighted these movies as if their lives depended on them, as they proved to be the closest thing to the modern moneymaking blockbuster in the pre Jaws and Star Wars era.

When Gray Lady Down debuted in 1978 the genre had lost much of its original appeal, and it were to be the last disaster epic, in which Charlton Heston appeared, whose former biblical superhero type persona tried during the seventies to reinvent himself by doing almost every major sci-fi and disaster film to come out of Hollywood.

As disaster movies go, this one is no different other than it takes place onboard a submarine.

The Captain played by Charlton Heston and his crew have been on a lengthy and tiresome patrol, and if God is willing and good seamanship is practised, they will return to port in a few days. But this is not to be, since for some unfortunate reason, a Norwegian freighter runs them down as they cruise on the surface.

Most of the crew meets a quick but brutal demise as the submarine descends on its watery grave hundreds of meters below the surface. All this mayhem happens within the first ten minutes, which means that the viewers the next hour and half must endure slow drownings and other horrors as the initial survivers are picked off one by one by the sea and the ever more dangerous wreck.

If you are into disaster movies you might like it, but then again you might not. The similarities between this effort and earlier ones are abundant. As already mentioned, the submarine setting is what makes it stand out. But perhaps even more importantly, there are no evil people aboard the submarine. After all, it?s the US Navy for Christ sake! One of the payoffs of seeing a film like Towering Inferno and the Poseidon Adventure was the prospect of seeing every evil minded or egoistical character in the cast succumbing to the elements. This is clearly not the case with Gray Lady Down, where every crewmember comes out with their honour intact, either they survive or not.

And the perpetrators of the disaster, the Norwegian freighter and its crew, get home free without so much as a torpedo up their propeller shaft. What kind of entertainment is that? The last time I saw it I felt like a voyeur seeing people slowly die. That?s pretty sick stuff!

For all its apparent flaws, I must admit that I have seen it at least 5 or 6 times. Why, you?d say? I?m a submarine movie fanatic and collect every film I can get my hands on, be it superbad, bad, mediocre, good, very good or excellent. I don?t fucking care! As long as a sub pop up, I?m there.

Quality wise this is mediocre at best, but if you are into submarine movies or share mayhem, you might be inclined to overlook its obvious shortcomings.