The infamous attempted mutiny by a Soviet naval commander came to an abrupt end a half-century ago in the Penobscot River along Maine’s midcoast.
Known to film buffs worldwide, “The Hunt For Red October” portrayed a real-life Soviet sailor who, on Nov. 8, 1975, tried to take over a Russian attack ship.
The movie version of the mutiny, based on a Tom Clancy novel, climaxes in Maine when the commander of a U.S. nuclear attack sub escorts the crippled enemy Soviet ship to the Penobscot.
The 109-mile river is among the longest in Maine so it’s fitting that it closed out the credits in one of the most successful movies in film history. But had then real or fictitious vessels gone up the Kennebec River instead, they would have met some friendly faces among the White Russian immigrant community in Richmond.
Besides the movie’s finale occurring in the Penobscot River, The Hunt for Red October had a second key Maine connection.
The U.S. attack sub portrayed in the international spy thriller, the USS Dallas, was actually overhauled at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, in 1998.
A military analyst and author, meanwhile, is using the 50th anniversary of the real-life Soviet sea drama’s “Hunt for Red October” to review the famous movie.
“The Hunt for Red October is a fantastic book and film,” says Isaac Seitz of NationalSecurityJournal.org. Written by Tom Clancy, the story centers around a Soviet submarine captain, Marko Ramius, who is given command of an advanced submarine but decides to defect to the West.
“It is a fantastic film – even today, it is probably the most accurate depiction of submariners ever put out by Hollywood,” Seitz says in his analysis.
The Hunt for Red October received mostly positive reviews from critics and is one the highest-grossing domestic films of all time, generating $122 million at the box office in North America and over $200 million worldwide.
The Soviet captain who mutinied in protest of what he considered to be the oppressive Brezhnev regime carefully timed it to coincide with the 58th anniversary of the “October Revolution,” on November 7, 1975.
Fifty years ago that captain’s failed mutiny efforts ended with his execution by Brezhnev.
The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution, was the second of two revolutions in Russia in 1917.
The pushback, led by Vladimir Lenin’s Bolsheviks as part of the broader Russian Revolution of 1917–1923, began through an insurrection in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) Nov. 7, 1917.
And thanks to the silver-screen version, one of the most momentous events in Soviet history ended on the Penobscot River in Maine 50 years ago.
