The Bedford Incident (1965)

A U.S. naval vessel is on a routine NATO patrol. However, the ship's maniacal commander (Richard Widmark) drives his crew to the breaking point which results in an intense showdown with a Russian submarine that has dire consequences. Based on the novel by Mark Rascovich and directed by producer (LOLITA) turned director James H. Harris. Widmark's tyrant of a ship's captain follows in the footsteps MOBY DICK's Captain Ahab and THE CAINE MUTINY'S Captain Queeg. The film is an intense cat and mouse Cold War thriller that ends (unlike the novel) in a horrific disaster in which no one wins. Harris keeps the apprehensive pressure cooker atmosphere percolating until it's almost unbearable. As a journalist profiling the Captain, Sidney Poitier gives one of the first performances by a black actor in which his race is never addressed (it's irrelevant to the plot) and could have just as well been played by a white actor. With James MacArthur, Martin Balsam, Wally Cox, Eric Portman and Donald Sutherland.