The American movie titled The Bedford Incident and directed by James B. Harris was released in 1965 and is categorized as drama.
Key cast members of The Bedford Incident include Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, Martin Balsam, Wally Cox.
The plot of The Bedford Incident is: The American destroyer USS Bedford (DLG-113) detects a Soviet submarine in the GIUK gap near the Greenland coast.[6] Although the U.S. and the Soviet Union are not at war, Captain Eric Finlander (Richard Widmark) harries his prey mercilessly while civilian photojournalist Ben Munceford (Sidney Poitier) and NATO naval advisor Commodore (and ex-Second World War U-boat captain) Wolfgang Schrepke (Eric Portman), look on with mounting alarm.
Because the submarine is not powered by a nuclear reactor, it needs to surface periodically to replenish air and recharge its batteries. This gives Finlander an advantage but also means the Soviets will be more desperate. Also aboard the ship are Ensign Ralston (James MacArthur), an inexperienced young officer constantly being criticised by his captain for small errors, and Lieutenant Commander Chester Potter, USNR (Martin Balsam), the ship's new doctor, who is a reservist recently recalled to active duty.
Munceford is aboard in order to photograph life on a Navy destroyer, but his real interest is Captain Finlander, who was recently passed over for promotion to rear admiral. Munceford is curious whether a comment made by Finlander regarding the American intervention in Cuba is the reason for his lack of promotion, perhaps betraying veiled aggression. Munceford is treated with mounting hostility by the captain because he is seen as a civilian putting his nose where it does not belong and because he disagrees with Finlander's decision to continue with an unnecessary and dangerous confrontation. Finlander is hostile to anyone who is not involved in the hunt, including the doctor, who advises that the pressure on the crew be reduced, but is unable to resist the captain on the issue.
The crew becomes increasingly fatigued by the unrelenting pursuit during which the captain demands full attention to the instruments. When the submarine is found and ignores Captain Finlander's demand to surface and identify itself, Finlander escalates the situation by smashing into the submarine's snorkel, calling it "floating debris". Finlander then orders the Bedford to arm weapons and withdraw a distance, where he will wait for the submarine's crew to run out of air and be forced to surface. He reassures Munceford and Schrepke that he is in command of the situation and that he will not fire first, but "If he fires one, I'll fire one."
A tired Ensign Ralston mistakes Finlander's remark as the command to "fire one!" and launches an anti-submarine rocket. The crew attempts to immediately disarm its warhead and they wait anxiously as the rocket flies to its targeted location and plunges below the surface toward the submarine. Several seconds later, their hopes are dashed as the warhead detonates, destroying the submarine. Sonar then detects four Soviet nuclear-armed torpedoes targeting the destroyer; the submarine had fired them as soon as it detected the rocket's entry into the water. Finlander initially gives basic orders to evade but then silently steps outside. Munceford follows, angrily confronting the captain for his inaction.
Finlander does nothing, knowing his actions have doomed everyone on board the Bedford, as the ship cannot escape the nuclear torpedoes. The film ends with still shots of various crewmen "melting" as if the celluloid film were burning as the Bedford and her crew are vaporised in an atomic blast. The film's final image is an towering mushroom cloud..
