Hellcats of the Navy

Infobox Film
name = Hellcats of the Navy


image_size = 150px
caption =
director = Nathan Juran
producer = Charles H. Schneer
writer = David Lang
Charles A. Lockwood
Hans Christian Adamson
Raymond Marcus
Bernard Gordon
narrator =
starring = Ronald Reagan
Nancy Davis
Arthur Franz
William Leslie
William Phillips
Harry Lauter
Michael Garth
Joseph Turkel
Don Keefer
Selmer Jackson
Maurice Manson
Robert Arthur
music = Mischa Bakaleinikoff
cinematography = Irving Lipman
editing = Jerome Thoms
distributor =
released = 1957
runtime = 82 minutes
country = United States
language = English
budget =
gross =
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"Hellcats of the Navy" is a 1957 movie starring Ronald Reagan and wife Nancy Davis (her then professional name) — a moral World War II submarine tale — the only film in which they appear together.

Reagan plays Captain Casey Abbott, commander of the fictional submarine USS "Starfish", who is ordered to undertake a dangerous mission which sees him attempting to cut off the flow of supplies between China and Japan in the heavily-mined waters off the Asiatic mainland. When a diver, who is Abbott's competitor for the affections of Nurse Lieutenant Helen Blair (Davis) back at home, gets into a dangerous situation, Abbott must struggle to keep his personal and professional lives separate in dealing with the crisis.

Reagan noted in his autobiography that he was disappointed in the film overall, having expected a result more like "Destination Tokyo," a major Warner Bros. film of a decade previous. The diminishing status of the films he was offered led to his voluntary absence from the big screen.

The script for "Hellcats" was written under a "front" pseudonym by Bernard Gordon, aka "Raymond T. Marcus." A victim of the blacklistFact|date=June 2008 and a former member of the Communist PartyFact|date=June 2008, Gordon found it ironic Fact|date=June 2008that the one on-screen pairing of the Reagans was penned by a man who could not sign his own name to the script, since he was a victim of a blacklist the star denied ever existed. (Reagan stated this denial in 1980 to Joseph Alsop, although it is also clearly at odds with his wife Nancy's experience in the 1950s, having been mistaken for another "Nancy Davis" who was indeed on the "do not hire" list).Fact|date=June 2008

As a result of this film and Mr. Reagan's service as Commander in Chief, the Reagans are especially revered by the Navy, which was evident during Mr. Reagan's funeral services.

External links

*imdb title|id=0050500

ee also

* Ronald Reagan films