Zwischenfall im Atlantik (1965)

Zwischenfall im Atlantik: Directed by James B. Harris. With Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, James MacArthur, Martin Balsam. An American destroyer Captain is determined to confront a Soviet submarine caught violating territorial waters. Perhaps too determined.

“The Bedford Incident is a Cold War Navy story with the captain of the destroyer, USS Bedford playing a game of cat and mouse with a Soviet submarine which has strayed inside the territorial waters of Greenland.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThese kinds of things happened quite a lot during those tension filled days of the Cold War. Fortunately neither we or the Soviets had a captain like Richard Widmark who is determined to push the envelope all the way if he can.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOn the voyage that this game of nuclear tag takes place, Widmark is saddled with a pair of outsiders and he doesnu0026#39;t like it at all. First is Sidney Poitier a photojournalist who constantly keeps getting underfoot as Widmark sees it. The second is a medical officer Martin Balsam whom he didnu0026#39;t request.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWidmark is a frightening man. He keeps everything and everyone on the ship so tense heu0026#39;s even got Eric Portman concerned. Portman is a NATO adviser and a former German U-Boat commander. As Poitier says, u0026#39;Hitleru0026#39;s Navy to which heu0026#39;s corrected, u0026#39;no Admiral Doenitzu0026#39;s Navy.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eUnder his command, young ensign James MacArthur is afraid to breathe wrong and sonar man Wally Cox suffers a nervous breakdown. The lack of relief for both of these guys has tragic results.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe Bedford Incident remains a curiously forgotten film while such work as Dr. Strangelove and Failsafe people remember better. Thatu0026#39;s not right, The Bedford Incident is in some respects superior to both of those classics. Itu0026#39;s about the strain of command as much as anything else and itu0026#39;s also about the dangers of a truculent attitude in the person with the command.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eHopefully this forgotten classic will get more recognition one day.”