Letter-Box Sail to Sea Tales

“The Sea Chase,” a 1955 John Wayne World War II adventure, and “The Hunt for Red October,” the 1990 film version of the best-selling Tom Clancy novel, both overflow the small TV screen in their videotape versions. But the letter-boxed editions of these sea adventures on laser video disc preserve the visual integrity of both films and offer good use of the wide-screen format.

In “The Sea Chase” (Warner, 117 minutes, CLV extended play), Wayne plays the commander of a World War II German merchant ship. But not to worry, Wayne plays an acceptable hero--an anti-Nazi skipper fighting against his pro-Nazi second-in-command as he leads his fugitive ship through a predictable melodramatic war tale. Lana Turner is a German agent.

Director John Farrow’s use of the then-new CinemaScope technology is creditable and the letter-boxing preserves all of his wide-screen ideas. The loud Roy Webb score is given the full digital treatment and should thunder through any adequate stereo system with impressive authority.

“The Hunt for Red October” (Paramount, 134 minutes, two extended play discs with digital stereo sound) stars Sean Connery as a Soviet submarine commander who seems to be planning to defect to the United States. It’s a big submarine and the wide screen is used to good effect.

Like Wayne, Connery makes a former enemy a sympathetic hero. For some reason, Paramount also has released a pan-and-scan disc version. It’s vastly inferior, turning director John McTiernan’s images into a claustrophobic mishmash. Comparing the two versions is revealing. Most of the detail carefully set down by McTiernan is compromised in the annoying as well as confusing pan-and-scan version.