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Thunder Afloat (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) is a glorification of the "ash can fleet"—the homely little sub chasers whose depth bombs helped break the back of the German submarine campaign in 1918. Written by M.G.M. publicity man Ralph Wheelwright, who served on a sub chaser in World War I, with the collaboration of retired Navy Commander Harvey S. Haislip, produced with the approval and assistance of the Navy Department, which placed the remnant of the Navy's 500 World War chasers at the studio's disposal, Thunder Afloat is an able and reasonably authentic document. As entertainment it stands out from the ruck of service pictures by virtue of its material: as exciting as a periscope rising off starboard, as dramatic as the prayerful waiting of men trapped in a delicate mechanism at the bottom of a turbulent, exploding sea.
To publicize Thunder Afloat, M.G.M. released a short on David Bushnell (see p. 44), the 18th-Century U. S. inventor credited with being the father of the submarine and the underwater explosive which is still one of the most effective weapons against it. During the Revolution he built an oaken submarine with which unsuccessful attempts were made to screw bombs onto the hulls of British warships in Boston Harbor, off Governor's Island, and in the Delaware River above Philadelphia. His "torpedo" (an oaken magazine enclosing 150 Ibs. of gunpowder) went off harmlessly. Too frail to operate the soon discredited "Bushnell's Turtle" himself, its inventor blamed its failure on its operators. After the war he was believed to have spent several years in France. In 1795 he appeared in Georgia, where, under the name of Dr. Bush, he taught school, later began to practice medicine. When he died at 82, David Bushnell was so obscure that no one could remember whether he had ever been married.
CURRENT & CHOICE
The Wizard of Oz (Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr; TIME, Aug. 21).
The Women (Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell; TIME, Sept. 11).
Nurse Edith Cavell (Anna Neagle, Edna May Oliver, May Robson; TIME, Sept. 11).
Golden Boy (Adolphe Menjou, Barbara Stanwyck, William Holden; TIME, Sept. 18).