Action In the North Atlantic [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Walter W. Jaffee (Author), Guy Gilpatric (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 30, 2000

Out of print for 50 years, this is the book that was made into the hit movie with Humphrey Bogart and Raymond Massey, honoring the important contributions of the merchant marine in winning World War II. Written by Guy Gilpatric, author of the classic Mr. Glencannon stories.

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About the Author

Guy Gilpatric was a pioneer in aviation, setting an altitude record in the early 1900s. After serving as a pilot in World War I, he became an advertising executive and then began the famous series of stories about Mr. Glencannon, which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in the 1930s, '40s' and 50s.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Glencannon Pr; 1st edition (June 30, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1889901156
• ISBN-13: 978-1889901152
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,290,690 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Surprisingly thin story on which to base a classic, January 3, 2005

By 

Andrew S. Rogers (Stamford, Connecticut) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Action In the North Atlantic (Hardcover)

I have to admit right off that I haven't seen the large-print reissue of "Action in the North Atlantic," and so can't comment on this specific new edition. I did, however, just finish reading the story itself for the first time. And I was surprised at how thin the story is, considering that the Raymond Massey-Humphrey Bogart film that was made from it seems to be considered by many one of the great combat-at-sea movies to come out of World War II.

The fact is, there's just not a lot that happens in this book. Character development is minimal. And while there are a few exciting passages, usually involving torpedo attacks, these are brief payoffs for all the setting up you have to plow through to get there. The book is peopled with stock characters -- familiar now to anyone who knows their World War II films, and not quite so welcome to our modern sensibilities: the New York Jewish guy; the corn-fed Midwesterner; the Scandihoovian; the jut-jawed Navy Man; the dumb-but-loveable African American messman from the Deep South (who talks, natcherly, in awthennic di-uh-lekt that is painful to read today). I felt at times like these were the same group of people who showed up in the John Wayne film "Sands of Iwo Jima."

I hope Gilpatric's Glencannon books are better, because I'd still like to read those. In the meantime, the interested reader should be able to dust off this short book in little more time than it takes to watch the movie. On the whole, however, I'll take the film instead.