Your own side is about to torpedo you. Talk about a bad day at sea.
Panic arises among Allied POWs aboard a Japanese freighter when they learn that the ship is actually a decoy target for American submarines on night patrol. The prisoners unite and attack their Japanese captors just as an American sub surfaces and, not knowing the prisoners are aboard, prepares to torpedo the ship.
Acting
Nina Foch elevates stock material with genuine panic and steel.
Direction
Dreifuss squeezes maximum tension from 58 minutes and one set.
Director
Arthur Dreifuss
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Released mere months after V-J Day, this was part of a wave of rapid-fire 'Jap cruelty' pictures designed to process collective trauma while reinforcing wartime demonization.
The 'prison ship' premise was loosely inspired by real Japanese hell ships, though the decoy twist is pure Hollywood invention—actual hell ships were simply unmarked and frequently torpedoed by accident.
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