The Hunt for Red October (alternate on-screen Russian title: Красный октябрь, "Red October") is a 1990 American submarine spy thriller film directed by John McTiernan, produced by Mace Neufeld, and starring Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, James Earl Jones, and Sam Neill. The film is an adaptation of Tom Clancy's 1984 bestselling novel of the same name. It is the first installment of the film series featuring the protagonist Jack Ryan.
The story is set during the late Cold War era and involves a rogue Soviet naval captain who wishes to defect to the United States with his officers and the Soviet Navy's newest and most advanced ballistic missile submarine, a fictional improvement on the Soviet Typhoon-class submarine. A CIA analyst correctly deduces his motive and must prove his theory before a violent confrontation between the Soviet Red Fleet and the United States Navy spirals out of control.
The film was a co-production between the motion picture studios Paramount Pictures, Mace Neufeld Productions, and Nina Saxon Film Design. Theatrically, it was commercially distributed by Paramount Pictures and by the Paramount Home Video division for home media markets. Following its wide theatrical release, the film was nominated for and won a number of accolades. At the 63rd Academy Awards, the film won the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing, along with nominations for Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing. On June 12, 1990, the original soundtrack, composed and conducted by Basil Poledouris, was released by MCA Records. The Hunt for Red October received mostly positive reviews from critics and was the sixth-highest-grossing domestic film of the year, generating $122 million in North America and over $200 million worldwide in box office business.
Plot In November 1984, Soviet submarine captain Marko Ramius is given command of Red October, a new Typhoon-class ballistic missile submarine with a "caterpillar drive", rendering it nearly undetectable to passive sonar. At sea, Ramius secretly kills political officer Ivan Putin and relays false orders to his crew that they are to conduct missile drills off America's east coast. American attack submarine USS Dallas, which had been shadowing Red October, loses contact once the sub's caterpillar drive is engaged.
CIA analyst and former Marine Jack Ryan is based in London, but returns to Washington, D.C. After consulting with Vice Admiral James Greer, the deputy director of the CIA, Ryan briefs government officials on Red October and the threat it poses. Upon learning that the bulk of the Soviet Navy has been deployed to the Atlantic to locate and sink the sub, the military staff conclude that Ramius plans a renegade nuclear strike.
Countering this view, Ryan hypothesizes that Ramius, a native-born Lithuanian widower with few remaining personal ties to the Soviet Union, actually plans to defect with the sub, to the United States. National Security Advisor Jeffrey Pelt gives Ryan three days to confirm his theory before the U.S. Navy will be ordered to find and sink Red October. Ryan sets out to rendezvous with an aircraft carrier in the mid-Atlantic.
An unknown saboteur causes Red Octobers caterpillar drive to malfunction during risky maneuvers through a narrow undersea canyon. Aboard Dallas, Petty Officer Ronald "Jonesy" Jones, a sonar technician, discovers a way to detect Red October using his underwater acoustics software, and the boat plots an intercept course. After a hazardous mid-ocean transfer, Ryan is able to board Dallas, where he attempts to persuade its captain, Commander Bart Mancuso, to contact Ramius and determine his real intentions.
The Soviet ambassador informs Pelt that Ramius intends to launch a missile attack on the U.S. and asks for help in sinking Red October. That order is sent to the U.S. fleet, including Dallas, which has reacquired the Soviet sub. Ryan remains convinced that Ramius plans to defect with his officers and finally convinces Mancuso to contact Ramius and offer assistance. Ramius, stunned that the Americans correctly guessed his plan, accepts Mancuso's offer. Ramius then stages a nuclear reactor "emergency", ordering the sub to surface and his crew to abandon ship. After a U.S. frigate is spotted heading right for them, Ramius submerges, leaving his crew in life rafts, telling his medical officer, Dr. Petrov, who stays with the crew, that Ramius and his remaining officers will scuttle the Red October and go down with the sub. Ryan, Mancuso, and Jonesy board Red October via a rescue submarine, at which point Ramius turns over his sub to the Americans and requests asylum for himself and his officers.
Red October is then ambushed by Alfa-class submarine V. K. Konovalov, commanded by Ramius' former student, Captain Tupolev. Konovalov fires upon Red October with a torpedo which Ramius destroys by causing it to impact Red October before it can arm. As the two Soviet subs maneuver, one of Red Octobers cooks, Loginov, reveals himself to be the saboteur and an undercover agent for the Soviet GRU. He opens fire on the bridge, fatally wounding first officer Vasily Borodin, before retreating to the missile bay, intending to ignite a missile engine and destroy the ship.
Loginov is pursued by Ryan and Ramius, and he wounds Ramius before being killed by Ryan. Konovalov launches a second torpedo which is set to arm immediately. Dallas is able to divert it toward herself and evade by launching countermeasures and conducting an emergency blow to the surface. The torpedo reacquires Red October but Mancuso maneuvers towards the Konovalov, which the torpedo strikes and destroys. The crew of Red October, now rescued, witness the submerged explosion from the deck of the U.S. frigate. Unaware of the second Soviet submarine, they believe that Ramius has sacrificed himself and scuttled Red October to avoid being boarded.
Ryan and Ramius, their subterfuge complete, navigate Red October to the Penobscot River in Maine. Ryan, despite his own fear of flying, falls asleep on a flight home to London next to a teddy bear for his daughter.
Cast
Sean Connery as Captain 1st rank Marko Ramius, Commanding Officer of Red OctoberThe Hunt for Red October at the British Film Institute Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan, CIA intelligence analyst, author, Professor of Naval History at the United States Naval Academy Joss Ackland as Andrei Lysenko, Soviet Ambassador to the United States Tim Curry as Dr. Yevgeni Petrov, Medical Officer on Red October Peter Firth as 1st Lieutenant Ivan Putin, Political Officer of Red October Scott Glenn as Commander Bart Mancuso, USN, Commanding Officer of James Earl Jones as Vice Admiral James Greer, USN, deputy director of the CIA Jeffrey Jones as Skip Tyler, a former submarine commander who identifies Red Octobers propulsion system Richard Jordan as Jeffrey Pelt, National Security Advisor Sam Neill as Captain 2nd rank Vasily Borodin, Executive Officer of Red October Stellan Skarsgård as Captain 2nd rank Viktor Tupolev, Commanding Officer of Konovalov and Ramius's former student Fred Thompson as Rear Admiral Joshua Painter, USN, Commander of the Enterprise carrier battle group Courtney B. Vance as Petty Officer Ronald "Jonesy" Jones, sonar operator of USS Dallas Tomas Arana as Igor Loginov, a GRU agent on Red October Timothy Carhart as Lt. Commander Bill Steiner, USN, commander of the US Navy's deep-submergence rescue vehicle Mystic Daniel Davis as Captain Charlie Davenport, Commanding Officer of Anatoly Davydov as Red October Sonar Officer Sven-Ole Thorsen as Russian COB Ivan G'Vera as Russian official. Michael Welden as Captain Lieutenant Gregoriy Kamarov, Navigation officer of Red October Rick Ducommun as C-2A Navigator Larry Ferguson as Master Chief Petty Officer Watson, USN, Chief of the boat, USS Dallas Ronald Guttman as Lieutenant Melekhin, Chief Engineer of Red October Boris Lee Krutonog as Viktor Slavin, Diving Officer of Red October Krzysztof Janczar as Yevgeni Bonovia, Executive Officer of Konovalov Anthony Peck as Lt. Commander "Tommy" Thompson, Executive Officer of USS Dallas Ned Vaughn as Seaman Beaumont, a junior sonar operator on USS Dallas Gates McFadden as Dr. Caroline Ryan, Jack's wife Peter Zinner as Admiral Yuri Padorin Mark Draxton as Lieutenant Wolfe, Officer on USS Dallas
In addition, the director's father, John McTiernan Sr., has a credited cameo as one of the attendees at Ryan's briefing for the National Security Advisor.
Production Development Producer Mace Neufeld optioned Tom Clancy's novel after reading galley proofs in February 1985. Although the book became a bestseller, no Hollywood studio was interested because of its content. Neufeld said, "I read some of the reports from the other studios, and the story was too complicated to understand". After a year and a half, he finally got a high-level executive at Paramount Pictures to read Clancy's novel and agree to develop it into a film.
Screenwriters Larry Ferguson and Donald Stewart worked on the screenplay while Neufeld approached the U.S. Navy for approval. They feared top secret information or technology might be revealed. However, several admirals liked Clancy's book and reasoned that the film could do for submariners what Top Gun did for the Navy's jet fighter pilots. Captain Michael Sherman, director of the Navy's western regional information office in Los Angeles, suggested changes to the script that would present the Navy in a positive light.
The Navy gave the filmmakers access to several s, allowing them to photograph unclassified sections of both and to use in set and prop design. was used for the scene in which Baldwin is dropped from a helicopter to the submarine. Key cast and crew members rode along in subs, including Alec Baldwin and Scott Glenn, who took an overnight trip aboard commanded by then Commander Thomas B. Fargo. Glenn based his portrayal of Commander Bart Mancuso on Fargo.
Casting Some of the principal cast had previous military service which they drew on for their roles. Sean Connery had served in the Royal Navy, Scott Glenn in the United States Marine Corps, and James Earl Jones in the United States Army. Baldwin and Glenn spent time on a Los Angeles-class submarine. Baldwin was trained to drive an attack submarine. Some extras portraying the Dallas crew were serving submariners, including the pilot of the DSRV, Lt Cmdr George Billy. Submariners from San Diego were cast as extras because it was easier to hire them than to train actors. Crew from , including Lt Mark Draxton, took leave to participate in filming. According to an article in Sea Classics, at least two sailors from the Atlantic Fleet-based Dallas took leave and participated in the Pacific Fleet-supported filming. The crew of the called their month-long filming schedule the "Hunt for Red Ops." Houston made more than 40 emergency surfacing "blows" for rehearsal and for the cameras.
The filmmakers' first choice to portray Jack Ryan was Kevin Costner, who turned down the film in order to star in and direct Dances with Wolves. Harrison Ford was also approached to play Jack Ryan but turned it down. He later replaced Alec Baldwin as Ryan in Patriot Games. Baldwin was approached in December 1988, but was not told for what role. Klaus Maria Brandauer was cast as Soviet sub commander Marko Ramius but resigned the role two weeks into filming due to a prior commitment.