AllMovie

The first of Columbia's "B" wartime melodramas for their Summer 1942 schedule was the largely speculative Submarine Raider. Set in the early stages of the war, the film makes several suppositions concerning the events surrounding the Pearl Harbor attack which don't entirely hold up when seen today. According to the screenplay, a Japanese aircraft carrier en route to Hawaii takes time out to shell an American yacht, killing all the passengers except for heroine Sue Curry (Marguerite Chapman). Fortunately she is rescued by a passing submarine, wherein she falls in love with sub commander Chris Warren (John Howard). Apprised by Sue of covert Japanese naval movements, Warren tries to alert Pearl Harbor of the impending sneak attack. Failing to do so, he spends the remainder of the picture trying to sink that enemy aircraft carrier introduced in Reel One (both sub and carrier are "played" by unconvincing scale models, bobbing up in down in Columbia's studio tank). Nino Pipitone, in real life a Philippine horse trainer, plays the black-hearted Japanese commander.