MovieChat Forums > Torpedo Run (1959) Discussion > Special Effects Award?

Special Effects Award?


While I liked the movie well enough, the little models were laughably distracting. I know in todays digital age we're spoiled when it comes to effects but those little 2ft. model boats blowing up and the torpedos on visable guidewires bothered me. It was 1958, not 1928, you'd think they could have spent more time on realism.

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You wrote your post in the year 2011, when even the cheapest television set has infinitely more detail than any movie theatre in the land could project in 1958. Audiences back then probably didn't see the wires, goofs, etc. and probably didn't care; this was a wartime drama and not a wartime action-oriented film.

In addition, the special effects of this movie were state-of-the-art for the time. The special effects that we are used to did not appear until Star Wars, a full 19 years after Torpedo Run.

The cheezy special effects did not bug me nearly as much as the fictional storyline. Even a boring day on a sub in wartime beats a fictional battle in my book.

Just curious-did you serve in the military, perchance??

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this was a crappy,cheap movie. Close to a B movie. OK they got nominated for a special effects Academy award. That I am totally suprised at. The toy ships the used to blow up. the torpedos on a wire. It kind of reminds me of Plan 9 from Outerspace.The story was silly, insulting to any one who was in the submarine service. The captian at times looks psycotic.they made up this story to make it melodramatic.There were far superior Submarnie movies made in the 1940's This was kind of like McCale's Navy.

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Actually, 35mm film has quite high resolution, and even back in 2005 35 mm film was scanned for release on DVD at 1080 or 2000 lines.

Kodak states that 35mm film has the equivalent of 6K resolution according to a Senior Vice President of IMAX; so most of the scanning of 35mm film for transfer to DVD doesn't even do justice to the original film resolution.

It is better to be kind than to be clever or good looking. -- Derek

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I always love it when a person adds some real hard-core, detailed knowledge to a discussion, giving the rest of us something to chew on; thank you, PT100.

What I got from your reply is that the 1958 movie being discussed had pretty good resolution, for it's time and even good into the 21st century.

However, couldn't they have painted the wires to blend into the background? We've all seen movies which were light on special effects but heavy on plot or close-up shots showing emotion in lieu of expensive and in this case, hokey special effects.

And then there are the movies that Hollywood churns out but the thousands which rely strictly on special effects........they have become the rule instead of the exception, unfortunately.

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By 1958 studios were feeling the competitive effects of TV. As a result they turned out more low-budget films to cut costs, and they also started selling broadcast rights to their films (in 1956). The budget for Torpedo Run was $1,547,000 and the box office receipts amounted to $2,580,000. So I guess they considered that to be a pretty good profit. That's the bottom line in the movie business.

It is better to be kind than to be clever or good looking. -- Derek

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Interesting. You must either be an industry insider or one very serious movie buff!

By the way, I like your signature at the bottom; the Derek quote. However, Derek is a fictional TV character with no depth; Dennis Prager is a real person doing more good on a daily basis on the radio and reaching more people who need to hear his message of "It is more important to be good than to be nice", among many other intelligent aphorisms.

Interesting that TR made a nice profit at the box office; what does that say about the intelligence of the average US movie-goer???? Not much; and not much has changed!

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It's not really fair to generalize about an entire population just because of one film. There are many more serious movies that have made a lot more money in the U.S. It's also important to consider the historical context in which the film was made. During the Cold War, Americans wanted some nostalgic reassurance--a reminder that they had been the Arsenal of Democracy, had been instrumental in winning WWII, and could still prevail in the Atomic Age.

It's probably worth remembering that, if not for the American involvement in WWII, most of the world would now be speaking German, Italian and Japanese, and it would probably not be a very nice world.

It is better to be kind than to be clever or good looking. -- Derek

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