Tallulah, Gary, Cary & the Devil

Film poster

Source: Wikipedia

I've written several posts on this blog about actress Tallulah Bankhead [1902-1968], a Huntsville native. These pieces include her films Lifeboat and Faithless, her visits to Birmingham and then around Alabama, her appearances on Lucille Ball's TV shows and her final acting role in a two-part episode of the 1960s Batman TV show as the villain, Black Widow. Now it's time for a look at her 1932 film Devil and the Deep, made in the same year as Faithless. 

That film is what is known as a pre-Code movie, Hollywood movies made from the late 1920s until 1934, when the Hayes censorship code went into effect. These films included subject matter ranging from abortion, prostitution and infidelity to profanity, illegal drug use and sexual situations. All of that disappeared when the Hays code was adopted. Crime and sin had to have consequences and punishment. I've written a blog post on one such very strange film featuring two Alabama connections, Murder at the Vanities [1934]. 

So, what is Tallulah up to in Devil and the Deep?  

In this film she is Diana, wife of submarine commander Charles Sturm, played by Charles Laughton in one of his earliest Hollywood films. He is pathologically jealous of every man she meets, including Lieutenant Jaeckel [Cary Grant]. Jaeckel and Diana are just friends, but no matter. As the film opens, Sturm is having him transferred, and the pair must say their goodbyes. 

Much of the film's first half takes place at a restaurant, but then Diana decides to leave and privately asks Jaeckel to come see her later in the evening. Sturm discovers them together and his anger at the dinner rises to hysteria after Jaeckel leaves, and he strikes Diana. She leaves the house immediately and begins walking the city streets.

Well, who should she encounter but the handsome Lieutenant Sempter [Gary Cooper], who is actually Jaeckel's replacement. Diana won't find that out until the next day, however, just as he doesn't know who she is. They talk themselves into a one night stand. Imagine their surprise when Sempter shows up at the house the next morning to report for duty.

Sturm's suspicion transfers to Sempter, and the commander begins to plot revenge. On the night the sub is to get underway, Diana goes aboard to warn her lover Sempter about Sturm. The commander orders the vessel to leave port with Diana still on board. Sturm has the sub deliberately maneuver into an oncoming ship and several compartments are flooded.

As survivors gather in the control room, Sturm and Sempter each assert command after Diana reveals her husband's madness. Sempter eventually takes control. In a long, exciting and apparently pretty accurate sequence, we see the crew and Diana use the escape trunk and Momsen lungs to exit to the surface. Laughing maniacally, Sturm stays behind to drown.

A court martial later clears Sempter of the most serious charges. He and Diana meet again in a store and leave together in a cab.

Devil and the Deep is based on the novel Sirenes et Tritons [1927] by Maurice Larrouy (1882-1939), a French naval officer and author of numerous novels. Marion Gering (1901-1977) directed the film, one of many he did in the 1930s. The movie is the only one in which both Cary Grant and Gary Cooper appear, although they had no scenes together. 

She made some 20 films between 1918 and 1966, yet Bankhead was best known for her stage performances in London, on Broadway and around the United States. Her best known film is probably Lifeboat [1944], an Alfred Hitchcock film that also stars another Alabama native, Mary Anderson. That movie is wonderful, Bankhead is in fine form and Hitchcock's cameo on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean is well done.

I really enjoyed this film, just as I did another of Bankhead's films that year, Faithless. She does a good job playing the Commander's long-suffering wife, and wearing that slinky white dress through the first half of the film. The second half turns out to be an exciting series of scenes aboard the submarine and inside the escape trunk. Oh, and Laughton, Grant and Cooper are pretty good, too!

Some more comments below. 

A famous photo of Tallulah Bankhead is hanging in the Commander office. 

Early in the film Diana ponders her fate with the Commander.

Lieutenant Jaeckel and Diana converse after his transfer dinner. 

The Commander joins them at the bar.

Diana decides to leave and asks Jaeckel to come by the house later. 

And so he does. The Commander soon arrives and after Jaeckel leaves accuses Diana of infidelity and slaps her. She immediately leaves and begins a long walk. 

Well, who does she meet but Jaeckel's replacement, although neither of them reveal true identities. 

Kisses and more soon follow. 

The next morning the new lovers are in for a big surprise. 

After that the action moves quickly and the exciting submarine sequence begins. Sturm and Sempter jockey for command, and Sempter takes over. 

Let's learn how this Momsen lung thingie works. 

Sempter and Dianna have a final confab before using the escape trunk to reach the surface. 

We'll assume they lived happily ever after. 

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Source: Wikipedia

The Seven U.S. Navy Ships Named USS Alabama

As noted and linked below, I've written blog posts on both USS Alabama battleships. In this one I decided to cover all the ships of that name in the U.S. Navy over the years. 

One of these days I need to do a post on all the ships named after Alabama cities. I have written one on the "USS Birmingham and Early Flight".  

• USS Alabama (1819), a 74-gun ship of the line, laid down in 1819 to honor the new state, but never completed as such. Eventually she was launched in 1864 as the store ship USS New Hampshire. After the war she became a receiving ship for new sailors awaiting assignment and later a training vessel. In 1904 she was renamed Granite State to free her second name for a new battleship. She caught fire and sank at her pier on the Hudson River in May 1924. 

Source: Wikipedia 

• USS Alabama (1838), a sidewheel steamer built in Baltimore and transferred to the Navy in 1849  served as a troop transport during the Mexican–American War. She carried personnel involved in the capture of Veracruz, but was found unsuitable for continued naval service. Apparently no image or records of naval service exist. She was sold at a public auction in New Orleans in 1849 and foundered in the Bahamas in 1852. 

• USS Alabama (1850) was a sidewheel steamer merchant vessel commissioned in September 1861 during the American Civil War. The U.S. Army had begun using her as a troop transport in the spring and summer of that year. She saw extensive service along the Georgia and Florida coasts in the occupation of coastal areas and participated in the capture of blockade runners. Later in the war she worked along the North Carolina coastline. She was decommissioned in Philadelphia in June 1865 and soon sold back into civilian service. She was destroyed by fire in 1878. 

The steamer burning on December 24, 1871--a date different from the 1878 one in the Wikipedia entry. The source of this illustration and the 1871 date is the collections of the Royal Museums Greenwich 

Source: Wikipedia

I did find a notice that appeared in at least three U.S. newspapers that may be the 1878 burning:

Source: Daily Press & Dakotaian [Yankton, Dakota Territory] 12 March 1878. The other newspapers were from St. Paul, Minnesota, and Chicago, Illinois. 

• USS Alabama (BB-8), a pre-dreadnought battleship commissioned in 1900 and scrapped in 1924. I've written a blog post about her here. Here fate is much different than the later USS Alabama battleship described below. 

USS Alabama on maneuvers off New York City in October 1912

Source: Wikipedia

Portion of the USS Alabama being scrapped at a shipyard in Baltimore, Maryland in June 1928. 

"Alabama had been sunk in bombing tests in September 1921 and had to be raised for scrapping. Note the cofferdam used to seal her hull amidships, and the dished-in side plating caused by near-miss bomb explosions." 

Source: U.S. Naval History & Heritage Command

• USS Alabama (SP-1052) was a 69-foot motor boat built in Boston in 1906 and inspected by the Navy in the summer of 1917 for possible World War I use. She was assigned the designation SP-1052, but probably never saw active service. Her fate is unknown. 

Source: Wikipedia

• USS Alabama (BB-60), a South Dakota-class battleship commissioned in 1942, converted to a museum ship in 1964 and now docked in Mobile, Alabama. You can find detailed information at the Battleship Memorial Park website, the Wikipedia entry and at the Encyclopedia of Alabama. I've written a blog post on the campaign to save the ship and bring it to Mobile. 

• USS Alabama (SSBN-731), an Ohio-class submarine, is currently in service. The ship was launched on May 19, 1984, and commissioned May 25, 1985. Homeport is the Naval Submarine Base at Bangor, Maine. USS Alabama made a visit to Mobile on one of its early voyages in 1985 or 1986. The vessel is featured in Time Under Fire, a Bermuda Triangle science fiction thriller. Completion of its landmark 100th patrol in 2021 is described here. 

Source: Wikipedia

There is at least one fictitious USS Alabama battleship. In their 1941 film In the Navy the comedy team of Bud Abbott & Lou Costello are up to their usual hijinks aboard just such a vessel. The film was released on May 30, 1941; the second USS Alabama battleship was commissioned on August 16, 1942. 

The film also stars Dick Powell, who was still in the "romantic crooner" stage of his career. Strangely enough, he plays a famous singer who joins the Navy and tries to hide his identity. Shemp Howard, an actor and comedian best known as one of the Three Stooges, has a small role. In addition to Powell's, songs are provided by the Andrews Sisters. The film was a box office success. 

Some filming was done at naval bases in San Diego and San Pedro, California. I've yet to determine why the name USS Alabama was chosen. Perhaps construction of the new battleship had been in the news or naval consultants suggested it. 

A fictitious USS Alabama ballistic missile submarine appears in the 1995 film Crimson Tide. As Wikipedia notes, the real USS Alabama makes an appearance:

"Because of the Navy's refusal to cooperate with the filming, the production company was unable to secure footage of a submarine submerging. After checking to make sure there was no law against filming naval vessels, the producers waited at the submarine base at Pearl Harbor until a submarine put to sea. After a submarine (coincidentally, the real USS Alabama) left port, they pursued it in a boat and helicopter, filming as they went. They continued to do so until she submerged, giving them the footage they needed to incorporate into the film.^[10]"