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The Enemy Below, Dick Powell
Robert Mitchum, Curt Jurgens, Theodore Bikel, Doug McClure
1957, US, 98 min.
WWII, Feature, Recommended

This is the VHS release.

Summary

In this feature, an American destroyer battles a U-boat in a deadly contest of wits. The commanders of both vessels share much in common. War-weary, yet highly experienced and determined to fulfill their respective missions, they play every card and guess one another's every ruse. While the U-boat captain doggedly pursues his goal to rendez-vous with a German raider and then turn homeward, the destroyer's commander stays relentlessly on his track, intending to delay the U-boat until additional destroyers can arrive.


Notes

The song sung by the crew on the submerged U-boat is So Leben Wir, aka Der alte Dessaurer. For lyrics and audio file please see http://ingeb.org/Lieder/solebenw.html.

This film presents a sympathetic treatment of the U-boat captain, one of the first American films to do so in the years following the end of World War II. It conveys a strong anti-war message; both commanders have experienced personal losses in this war, and both view themselves as simply men with a job to do - cogs in a nonsensical machine. There is no mention of politics or ideology (with the exception of an over-zealous U-boat officer who earns the scorn of the rest of the crew) and the idea of revenge is repudiated by the destroyer captain. The U-boat commander, a veteran of the last conflict, is particularly dismayed by the mechanization and impersonality of the current war, and remembers fondly the luck and skill required of U-boat men during World War I.

This film received an Academy Award for best special effects. The destroyer was portrayed by the USS Whitehurst (DE-634). Based rather loosely on a novel by Alfred Rayner.