A small tribute to the late Connery and The Hunt for Red October Superfan Dingus.
Shocking letter - Marko Ramius (yes @tomchick, he’s really called that. I also loved Dingus turning him into Irishman Marc O’Ramius on the podcast) sends a letter to a high ranking admiral in which he discloses his plan to defect and hand over the Red October to the Americans. The Admiral is handed the letter as he is about to drink his morning tea and promptly drops his cup upon reading it. I love the long tracking shot of the Admiral as he walks towards his office while ignoring all those that greet him.
Insect engine - The Red October is powered by a new silent propulsion system, the caterpillar drive.
Faint choir - The Red October, while still running on normal propulsion, is being tracked by American attack sub USS Dallas. Upon engaging the caterpillar drive, the Red October disappears from the Dallas’ sonar being manned by Seaman Jones and his apprentice Beaumont and captain Ramius lets his crew belt out the Soviet anthem. A sheepish Jones tells his captain that he thought he briefly heard faint singing over the sonar.
Sharp turn - After the Red October’s new propulsion system has been sabotaged, it needs to switch back to using its propeller and is being pursued by both the Dallas and a Soviet attack sub. The Red October dives deep into underwater canyons to avoid detection. When the Soviet sub fires torpedos at the Red October, captain Ramius takes his sweet time to make a critical sharp turn in order to avoid a torpedo.
Party line cook - It turns out that the sabotage of the propulsion system was carried out by one of the ship’s cooks, who was in fact a secret GRU officer.
Silent running - A little hint at the caterpillar drive and that other classic submarine movie Run Silent, Run Deep.
Back in the days where Alec Baldwin was a smoldering action star, almost Harrison Ford-like. Or Ben Affleck-like. Or Chris Pine or John Krasinski-like…
When Suzy ran away, most of her inventory consisted of library books. Some would say that was impractical packing. Others would say that was a crime.
birds
What kind of bird are you?
arrow
An arrow slew a dog. Was he a good dog? Who can say?
instruments
The marvelous response that composer Alexandre Desplat wrote to Benjamin Britten’s “A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra”, which introduced orchestral instruments to someone who hadn’t had exposure to that yet. The instruments Alexandre chose were pretty wacky, because they hadn’t been mentioned in Britten’s thing. This played over the end credits:
Noye
And why was Benjamin Britten important to Desplat? Because he also wrote “Noye’s Fludde”, which was the short opera that local communities and churches could put on for their kids. It’s an oddly spelled “Noah’s Flood”. Plotwise, such a production was how Suzy and Sam met and why she was dressed up as a bird. And just as Wes Anderson’s li’l alma mater St. John’s School was crucial to the development of Rushmore Academy in Rushmore, so was his youthful participation in a local production of “Noye’s Fludde” to this movie.
Good deduction, @BellaConfusione – and I didn’t even have to use “youthful erection” as a clue!
