Gray Lady Down


Gray Lady Down is a 1978 American submarine disaster film directed by David Greene and starring Charlton Heston, David Carradine, Stacy Keach, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox and Rosemary Forsyth, and includes the feature film debut of Michael O'Keefe and Christopher Reeve. It is based on David Lavallee's 1971 novel Event 1000.

Plot

Aging, respected Captain Paul Blanchard is on his final submarine tour before promotion to command of a submarine squadron on a canyon ledge above the ocean floor. A United States Navy rescue force, commanded by Captain Hal Bennett, arrives on the scene, but Neptune is subsequently rolled by a gravity slide to a greater angle that does not allow the Navy's Deep-submergence rescue vehicle to complete its work. As technical malfunctions increase, the submarine's sections get flooded and men die, crewmen have nervous breakdowns and tensions grow between the commanding officers.
A small experimental submersible, Snark, is brought in to assist with the rescue. Snark is very capable, but run by a U.S. Navy officer misfit, Captain Don Gates. The tiny submersible is the only hope for a rescue. Ultimately, the surviving members of the crew are rescued by the DSRV, thanks to Gates sacrificing himself by using the Snark to jam the Neptune in place as another gravity slide begins while the rescue is taking place. Moments later the gravity slide pushes the Neptune and the Snark off the ledge and into the ocean's abyss. The film ends with a somber Blanchard climbing out of the DSRV and being welcomed aboard the rescue ship USS Pigeon by Bennett and his officers.

Cast

Even though the submarine depicted in the movie is a Skate-class submarine, in the opening credits, footage of the real-life submarine was filmed specifically for Gray Lady Down, depicting the fictional USS Neptune. Gray Lady Down also re-used submarine special-effects footage and the large-scale submarine model originally used to portray the fictional submarine USS Tigerfish in the 1968 movie Ice Station Zebra to depict USS Neptune. The US Navy's USS Cayuga appeared in the film as the fictional USS Nassau. The and her DSRV were prominently featured in the movie.

Reception

, reviewing for The New York Times, wrote "It's been composed with its crises so evenly spaced that you ache for a station break bracketed by commercials... The people who appear in movies like that don't act. They display various cuts of resolve and steadfastness as if they were male models."