This film was so meaningful to me. My grandmother's first cousin, Alexander Miller MacKinnon 19, drowned during a March 1942 attack while serving in the Merchant Marine.He was aboard the "Colabee," having just left Cuba with a load of sugar for Baltimore. 10 miles out they were hit by the German submarine U-126. 23 dead, 14 survivors. Ironically the U-126 was itself destroyed the following year with no survivors.As a child in 1940s Buffalo all our windows were carefully covered with black-out shades each evening. I heard the adults whispering that this was in case the Germans came up the St. Lawrence to the Great Lakes but we did not really know U-Boats were operating so close to our shores.A year earlier Alex had been assigned to the SS Santa Elisa, hauling sugar cane from Chile to New York, arriving Christmas Eve 1941. But on the return trip to Chile in January 1942 the Santa Elisa was attacked, just as she left NYC carrying crates of safety matches and barrels of highly explosive carbide crystals. She was then towed back to the Brooklyn Yard for repairs. Which is why Alex was aboard the Colabee.After being refitted the Santa Elisa set out to carry gasoline from England to Malta as part of Churchill's 62 vessel Operation Pedestal. That August 1942 she was attacked a second time and torpedoed by Italian motorboats, the gasoline caught fire and she went up in flames off of Tunisia. (One account says no survivors; official MM record states no deaths.)Many parts of the movie show what our Merchant Marine was really going through. Yet it wasn't until 1988 that President Reagan signed the bill conferring Veteran status on all mariners who served in WWII, guaranteeing their benefits.

My dad was a sonar man on a destroyer escort and made two convoys across the mid-Atlantic. I saw this film as a kid and quickly reproduced the battle sequences in the bathtub with my model ships. When it finally came out on DVD I snatched it up. It holds up through repeated viewings. I even used the burial at sea sequence in a Memorial Day Service! There is something about Bogey leading in the Lord's Prayer! I buy every WW2 naval picture I can get my hands on--but this is the best of them. If you ever built WW2 ship models, you will love the miniatures in this film-a whole convoy with escorts and a menacing wolf pack of U-boats.Another favorite is "The Enemy Below" (1957) which takes place on a DE like the one my dad was on. But that film is more personal--two ships battling each other. "Action in the North Atlantic" is on a much grander scale.

My grandfather went to sea on square-riggers in 1900 and my Dad served as an Able Seaman all through World War 2. He was 400 miles ENE of Honolulu on 12/7/41 and heard the distress calls of the SS Cynthia Olson, sunk by a Japanese sub 200 miles North of them and 4 hours before the attack occurred. He went on to see action in the invasions of Attu, Kiska, North Africa, Sicily, Salerno, Anzio and Iwo Jima. So he had the dubious honor of being shot at by representatives of all Three Axis Powers(4 if you count the Vichy French). He told me the following story about seeing this film.He and his shipmate, Dudley, a fellow San Franciscan, had returned to the states after Anzio and were on a bus trip back to San Francisco. They had an overnight stay at some Podunk town in western Nebraska. With nothing else to do, they decided to see what was playing at the local theater. When they saw it was this film, wild horses couldn't keep them from watching it. They attended the screening and just laughed up a storm through the entire movie; especially at the scenes of an old Liberty ship slewing around the ocean like a Fletcher-Class Destroyer. They were SO loud and boisterous that the rest of the local crowd thought they were Nazi saboteurs and laid hands on them with the intention of beating the crap out of them THEN hanging them. Dudley and my Dad had to produce THEIR merchant seaman's documents and Sailor's Union of the Pacific and Seafarer's International Union cards to the crowd to save their skins. Once the crowd realized WHO they were, they were immediately carried to the local saloon and gotten rip-roaring drunk on the townspeople's dime.I finally got a chance to watch it on TCM sometime back and agree to the potboiler and propaganda elements of the film. That said, I DO think the screenplay is a lot better than he gave credit for. Especially considering it was nominated for an Academy Award. The language and characters ring more true than false and I could swear to knowing many old salts just like the crew. My Dad later went on to sail with Jim Thorpe in 1947/48 and was an able seaman into the early 1960's. But I'll always remember "Action In Northern Nebraska" as one of his favorite sea stories.So I leave you all with the admonishment and reminder he told me before I went to sea on Destoryers: "Keep her between the anchors!" "Just remember son. No matter WHERE you are at sea, you're NEVER more than seven miles from land...STRAIGHT DOWN!"

Frankly I wasn't expecting much from this flag-waver which I've never seen until today's screening as part of a Bogie retrospective at the NFT. I was aware that it formed part of Bogie's war-time CV and I had also read the oft-repeated story of how Bogie and Massy made an on-set wager as to whose stunt double was the bravest. That's what I KNEW. What I EXPECTED was a morale-booster laced liberally with not-too-subtle propaganda (given that the screenplay was by John Howard Lawson who never let a chance to praise Communism pass) and a cast of trained seals walking through it. What I GOT was actually very entertaining and informative, a movie that both invites and can withstand comparison with In Which We Serve. In both films a ship is blown out of the water in the first three reels, there are several survivors who eventually join another ship and sea-time is leavened by shore time. One (In Which We Serve) celebrates the Royal navy whilst the other (Action In The North Atlantic)deals with the Merchant navy and draws attention to the vital part the service played in the War effort. In Which We Serve on balance comes off marginally better but it did have the virtue of being written and co-directed by an exceptionally talented man, Noel Coward, who also played a leading role and apart from this Coward was able to lard his screenplay with a richer 'civilian' storyline inasmuch as England, unlike America, suffered heavy bombing resulting in thousands of civilian casualties. What we are left with is a fine film with realistic dialogue slightly more colorful than that in the British film, sterling performances from a typical Hollywood 'bomber-crew' including the ubiquitous Alan Hale, plus Sam Levene and Dane Clark. Ruth Gordon and Julie Bishop are stuck with the thankless roles of sailor's wives and for good measure Bishop gets to sing Cole Porter's Night And Day. It was a meister stroke to get a Hitler looka-like (complete with moustache to make sure we get it) to play the U-Boat officer behind the initial attack. There's probably little scope for further screenings outside of this kind of retrospective but it's definitely worth looking out for on DVD.