The Bedford Incident

The Bedford Incident is a 1965 British-American Cold War film starring Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier, and co-produced by Richard Widmark. The cast also features James MacArthur, Martin Balsam, Wally Cox and Eric Portman, as well as early appearances by Donald Sutherland and Ed Bishop. The screenplay by James Poe is based on the 1963 book by Mark Rascovich, which was patterned after Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. The film was directed by James B. Harris, who up to that time was best known as Stanley Kubrick's producer. Harris had recently split from a nine-year partnership with Kubrick.... Just after the split, Kubrick would make Dr. Strangelove , which raises similar issues to The Bedford Incident. The American destroyer USS Bedford detects a Soviet submarine in the GIUK gap near the Greenland coast. Though they are not at war, Captain Eric Finlander harries his prey mercilessly, while civilian reporter Ben Munceford and NATO naval advisor, Commodore Wolfgang Schrepke , look on with mounting alarm. Because the submarine is not powered by a nuclear reactor, its submerged endurance is limited.
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