Destination Tokyo (1943)

Heretofore screenwriter Delmer Daves directed his first film and assisted Albert Maltz (Pride of the Marines (1945)) with the screenplay of this Steve Fisher story about a submarine crew charged with infiltrating Tokyo bay in order to provide valuable information to the first Allied bombing mission of that city. There’s an interesting reference to this real mission in a movie about that James Doolittle-led bombing mission Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) which was made by a different studio (MGM). Fisher’s Original Story was Oscar nominated. Unusual casting and the human aspects of its personnel mark this above average (not P.C.) World War II (Warner Bros.) film. Cary Grant plays the decorated Captain of the sub John Garfield plays its heroic gunner Alan Hale its sentimental cook Dane Clark a crewman with an ax to grind and Robert Hutton its newest member “The Kid”. William Prince plays the sub’s “medical” staff who’s called upon to perform a miraculous operation when Hutton’s character comes down with an appendicitis (based on a true story!). John Ridgely plays a Naval Officer who was raised in Japan that’s needed for the mission and is picked up en-route. John Forsythe (who with Hutton was making his credited film debut) plays the radio operator who along with Garfield & Ridgely goes ashore in Japan under cover of darkness to fulfill the task at hand.

Purchase this DVD now at