The Bedford Incident

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The Bedford Incident
Directed by	James B. Harris
Written by	Mark Rascovich (novel) James Poe
Starring	Richard Widmark Sidney Poitier James MacArthur Martin Balsam Wally Cox Eric Portman
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	1965 (USA)
Running time	102 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Bedford Incident is a Cold War film from 1965 starring Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier, and co-produced by Richard Widmark. The cast also features Martin Balsam and Eric Portman, as well as an early appearance by Donald Sutherland. The film was based on the 1963 book by Mark Rascovich, which was patterned after Herman Melville's Moby Dick.

The film was written by James Poe and directed by James B. Harris, who until then was best known as Stanley Kubrick's producer. It was produced by Columbia Pictures at studios in England.

The U.S. Navy destroyer Bedford detects a Soviet submarine in the North Atlantic near Greenland. Captain Eric Finlander (Widmark) harries his prey mercilessly, while civilian reporter Ben Munceford (Poitier) and NATO naval advisor, Commodore Wolfgang Schrepke (Portman), look on with mounting alarm. The film also features Wally Cox as a sonarman and James MacArthur as a young officer who is constantly pressured by his captain over small errors caused by his inexperience.

The film serves as a dramatic reminder of the risks the world faces when military units from opposing countries operate in close proximity to one another. It explores the explosive mixture that can sometimes be created when strong personalities are combined with over zealousness and poor communication.

It is also to be noted that this film is Harris' version of the Cold War Nuclear Race climat, he who recently split from the Kubrick-Harris duo of the last 9 years. Kubrick would move on to make Dr.Strangelove (1963).