"Hell in the High Seas" “Hell on the High Seas” is Fuller’s seventh and first color painting, which does not stand out from the mass of propaganda commercial tapes of the McCarthy era. Again, as in the previous works of Fuller, attention is focused on the relationship within a closed group in a limited space, but unlike the “Cursed” Clément, where the action took place on a real submarine, this tape failed to hide the pavilion shooting: the details of the scenery are in one way or another noticeable.
The coloristic solution of the film is made in the traditions of cinema of those years: emphasized tanned bodies, bright, contrasting blue of the sea. R. Widmark for the second time (the first - in the "Incident on South Street") starred Fuller in the title role, this time - in the image of the captain of the submarine with the same very limited set of acting opportunities, without bothering to work on the character, which is not distinguished by psychological depth.
Shooting as always with a limited budget and attracting second-rate actors, the director this time does not release powerful visual energy from the meager narrative through sharp editing: in “Hell on the High Seas”, medium plans of a long duration become a priority, which greatly slows down the rhythm, discouraging the viewer who is accustomed to the lightning pace of Fuller tapes.
The lethargy of the narrative of the first half of the film closer to the middle is replaced by action-packed twists (especially in a scene with a lack of air), finally forcing the viewer to empathize. However, most of the screen time, an experienced sinophile, who has seen thrillers of all levels, is bored, distracted by the narrative of the heroic efforts of the brave American military to prevent nuclear war, the pathos of which are inflated, among other things, unbearably bombastic march music.
In one of the most difficult eras for cinema (the period of “black lists, hunting for dissenters), Fuller did not sit idle, working as an experienced artisan, taking on any plot that corresponds to his artistic preferences: military or heroic entourage, close attention in relations within the team, the image of the feat as the fruit of coordinated joint efforts, demonstrative exposure of formal techniques.
But it is the last component that makes almost any Fuller tape an entertaining style exercise in the eyes of a sinophile that is completely absent in Hell on the High Seas, which turns this picture into an ordinary anti-communist propaganda pamphlet, significantly inferior in technical performance to the early Bond films. The film deserves attention only for one reason – once again admire the inexplicable ability of Fuller to simulate the visual effect of expensive action, using an extremely limited budget.