The film was adapted by Vincent Flaherty and Howard Sheehan from the book PT 109: John F. Kennedy in World War II by Robert J. Donovan, and the screenplay was written by Richard L. Breen.

Cliff Robertson stars as Kennedy, and the film features performances by Ty Hardin, James Gregory, Robert Culp and Grant Williams.

PT 109 was the first commercial theatrical film about a sitting U.S. president released while he was still in office (although FDR was often depicted in small roles during his administration, most notably in Yankee Doodle Dandy).

Initially, Tulagi's irascible boat maintenance officer Commander C. R. Ritchie is unimpressed with the young, untested Kennedy, but the lieutenant is undaunted.

With a hodge-podge crew anchored by Ensign Leonard J. Thom as executive officer and initially skeptical sailors "Bucky" Harris and Edmund Drewitch he gets the 109 seaworthy again.

Without enough fuel for the return trip, the PT 109 is dispatched on an emergency mission to evacuate paramarines pinned down on a distant beach after disrupting the Japanese in the Raid on Choiseul.

While on patrol one dark, moonless night in August 1943, the radar-less boat is throttled down and searching for a Japanese convoy returning from a supply mission via "The Slot".

Towing a badly burned crew member by a life jacket strap clenched in his teeth, Kennedy leads the survivors to Plum Pudding Island.

As a result of their ordeal Kennedy and his men are eligible for leave back in the U.S., but he and several loyal crewmembers elect to stay and continue the fight on a new combat-weathered boat.

Among other actors considered for the lead were Peter Fonda, who objected to having to deliver his screen test using an impersonation of Kennedy's voice;[4] Warren Beatty (Jacqueline Kennedy's choice);[1] Jeffrey Hunter,[5] who had just finished playing Jesus Christ in King of Kings; and Warner Bros Television contract stars Edd Byrnes, Peter Brown, Chad Everett and Roger Smith.

Kennedy set three conditions on the film: that it be historically accurate, that profits go to the survivors of the PT 109 and their families, and that he would have the final choice of lead actor.

Solomon Islanders Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana are portrayed as random natives, when in fact they were dispatched by the coastwatcher, Reg Evans, to find the sailors.

[14] One review comments that "One of the screenplay's pluses ... is its concentration on the minor but still deadly activities that were undertaken by thousands of men during World War II.

Not everyone was involved with the major assaults; many spent their time risking their lives in places and situations of which most people are totally unaware, and it's a nice change of pace to see this aspect of the war dramatized.

[citation needed] According to Oliver Stone during a 2013 interview with Nerdist, PT 109 would be included in his Untold History documentary miniseries box set.