Movies - The Hunt for Red October

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	Movies - The Hunt for Red October

The Hunt for Red October was a 1990 film based on the best-selling novel of the same name. It starred Sean Connery as Ramius and Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan, and featured James Earl Jones, Scott Glenn, Sam Neill, Richard Jordan, Joss Ackland, Peter Firth, Jeffrey Jones, Fred Dalton Thompson, Courtney B. Vance, Tim Curry, and Stellan Skarsgård.

Critical reaction

The film received mostly positive critical reviews when released and was one of the top grossing movies of the year. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 95-percent positive rating. Nicholas Schager, for a 2003 Slant Magazine review, notes, "The Hunt for Red October is a thrilling edge-of-your-seat trifle that has admirably withstood the test of time."

The success of the film likely played a part in the development of several later submarine-oriented movies such as Crimson Tide
, U-571
, and K-19: The Widowmaker
.

Featured cast

Trivia

Many of the actors playing American sailors took a cruise on a real submarine to get a feel for their roles. Scott Glenn
, who played the commander of the USS Dallas, trained for his role by temporarily assuming the identity of a submarine captain (the sub's crew all took 'orders' from Glenn, who was being prompted by the actual commanding officer). (Glenn does have military experience in real life, as a U.S. Marine.)

Klaus Maria Brandauer
was originally cast as Marko Ramius. Coincidentally, Brandauer played opposite Sean Connery
in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again
. The two were again cast together in the 1990 film adaptation of John LeCarre's Cold War drama, The Russia House
.

Videotapes of the movie were specially made; the parts of the videocassette that are normally black were molded in red plastic. This was apparently an anti-pirating measure.

The climax of the book and the movie present one significant difference. In the book, the Red October rams the broadside of the pursuing Soviet submarine, damaging its prow but destroying the enemy; in the film, the Red October (with the assistance of the U.S.S. Dallas) draws a torpedo fired by the enemy submarine to hit that enemy vessel, and escapes undamaged.

Other Navy Related Films of Interest

K-19: The Widowmaker
(2002)
U-571 (film)
(2000)
(1995) ()
Crimson Tide (film)
(1995)
Das Boot
(1981)
The Bedford Incident
(1965)
The Caine Mutiny
(1954)

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Hunt for Red October (film) ]

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