Hell and High Water 54 (1954)

"...enough salt in it to burn.  Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
"Tense and exciting! A mighty entertaining action feature.  Variety

Editor's Note Samuel Fuller's HELL AND HIGH WATER is a superior war flick that takes place as the globe reaches the brink of World War III. Richard Widmark is placed in charge of a mission to Japan, where it is believed Communist troops are about to pull the trigger and obliterate civilization.

	Bella Darvi
	Cameron Mitchell
	Richard Widmark
	Victor Francen
	Alfred Newman - Original Music By
	David Hempstead - Based On Story By
	James B. Clark - Editor
	Jesse Lasky, Jr. - Screenplay
	Joseph MacDonald - Cinematographer
	Leland Fuller - Art Director
	Lyle R. Wheeler - Art Director
	Raymond A. Klune - Producer
	Samuel Fuller - Director
	Samuel Fuller - Screenplay

Sight and Sound
"Fuller deals with atomic war in this CinemaScope thriller....Richard Widmark brings his usual ferocity to his role..." 12/01/2007 p.102

Slant Magazine 8 of 10
In A Third Face, his magnificently pulpy memoirs, Samuel Fuller called Hell and High Water his least favorite film. The film may not smash through the Cold War thriller format as ferociously as Forty Guns smashes through the western format, but it's enough of a distinctive and personal work to put its creator's dismissal in perspective as another entry in that notoriously untrustworthy biography...As a men-on-a-mission adventure film, Hell and High Water more than holds its own with such other all-business '50s naval flicks as The Enemy Below and Run Silent Run Deep. But then again, Fuller's greatness resides less in constructing genre pieces than in bursting their seams, and the film's tight action sequences don't linger in the mind nearly as much as its oddities...Often seen as typical '50s Red-baiting propaganda, the film is actually a companion piece to Fuller's great Pickup on South Street... - Fernando F. Croce