Product Details

• Actors: Frank Sinatra, Virna Lisi, Anthony Franciosa, Richard Conte, Alf Kjellin
• Directors: Jack Donohue
• Writers: Jack Finney, Rod Serling
• Producers: William H. Daniels, William Goetz
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Paramount
• VHS Release Date: January 1, 1998
• Run Time: 106 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 630241377X
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #201,893 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Like "Ocean's 11" at sea, July 17, 2001

By 

Rottenberg's rotten book review (nyc) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Assault on a Queen [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Adapted from a great book by Jack Finney (who wrote the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"), "Assault" follows the exploits of a bunch of losers who hit the big time when they discover a sunken U-Boat, a german sub from WWII. Restoring the sub, they plot to use it in an unbelievable act of high-seas piracy. Setting their sights on the queen of the seas, the Queen Mary, they set out in their purloined sub to rattle disarmed torpedoes at it. The plot allows some lapses in credibility (though there's only the 5 would-be pirates, compared to the numbers it would take to run a real U-boat, but that's acceptable since nothing else goes right for them.

The novel is worth a good read, but the film works its own groove - the genial soldier's of fortune of the book are replaced by a more flavorful mix, including Sinatra as the hero and the great Tony Franciosa as his rival in morality and for the love of Virna Lisi. The former U-boat ace, whose Nazi past was a wedge between him and the Americans in the book, doesn't seem so out of place among them here. Though the film junks the book's best premise of showing how these otherwise honest joes jump the line into the criminal world, it more than makes up for that with a snappy script by Rod Serling and a jazzy score by Ellington. You won't love these charachters, but you'll still be glued to them. By the time Tony Franciosa makes it aboard the Queen Mary in the uniform of an RN submariner, you'll be yelling at the screen "Leftanant! Leftanant!! There are no Liuetenants in the Royal Navy!"

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good Sinatra action movie., December 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Assault on a Queen [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A group of would-be pirates use a recovered german submarine to attempt to rob the ocean liner H.M.S Queen Mary. This was not academy award winning picture and there were no outstanding performances by the cast. It is an entertaining film none the less due to the interesting plot. The undersea photography was very good especially shots of the submarine.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sinatra raises a German U-Boat to hijack the Queen Mary, July 12, 2001

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Assault on a Queen [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Frank Sinatra plays Mark Brittain, a former submarine officer, who joins rich Italian beauty Rosa Lucchesi (Virna Lisi) and her partners Vic Rossiter (Tony Franciosa) and Eric Lauffnauer (Alf Kjellin) in diving for lost treasure off the coast of Florida. When they discover a sunken German submarine, Luaffnauer the former U-Boat commander convinces the others to raise the sub and use it to hijack the Queen Mary. "Assault on a Queen" drags a little bit when they are restoring the sub, but the actual attempt at hijacking redeems the film. You know things are not going to work according to plan but you have to believe Sinatra's character is going to come out of this ahead. Still, you can never be sure. This 1966 film was directed by Jack Donohue and had a script by Rod Serling from the novel by Jack Finney. Final Note: The music for "Assault on a Queen" was by Duke Ellington.