Movie review - "Morning Departure" (1950) ***

Sturdy British submarine film helped to box office success by the fact a disaster similar to that shown on screen took place near the film's release (similar to the leak at Three Mile Island which helped The China Syndrome). It starts a bit clunkily, with John Mills and Richard Attenborogh a bit too well cast as a chipper captain with a loving wife and a cowardly stoker with a money-grabbing mean wife respectfully. But once the sub takes off it improves, despite the efforts of the irritatingly chipper working class crew - soon the sub hits a mine and whammo 64 people are dead! (We don't see it). Then its tension under the water as the rest try to get out, and a real shock ending - they don't. That alone puts it over the line.