#1 Das Boot vs. #16 The Enemy Below

PLOT:  “Das Boot” is the story of a u-boat patrol in 1941.  It coincides with the downturn in u-boat fortunes.  The movie is based on the novel by a military correspondent who went on a patrol.  The U-96 leaves from a French harbor to hunt convoys.  It will be an eventful patrol, but not because of sinkings.  The plot covers everything bad that might happen to a u-boat.  But it’s not a kitchen sink movie.  It is realistic in depicting life on a u-boat.  The crew goes through some shit, including boredom.  All of it is believable and very instructional.  No movie does a better job putting you on a submarine for a war patrol.  GRADE  =  A

“The Enemy Below” is an odd duck.  It tries to tell both sides of the story -  the escort and the submarine.  A destroyer escort captained by Robert Mitchum plays cat and mouse with a u-boat skippered by Kurt Jurgens.  The plot jumps between the ship and the boat effectively.  Since the movie was released well into the Cold War, it takes into consideration that West Germany was now our ally so the movie has no villains.  Jurgens is a worthy adversary and far from a Nazi.  The fact that the two captains are interchangeable makes the movie a bit trite.  It is the rare war movie that ends in crowd pleasing (but hardly believable) tie.  GRADE  =  B

FIRST QUARTER SCORE:  Das Boot  =  9

                                             The Enemy Below  =  8

ACTING:   I don’t really know how good the cast of “Das Boot” is considering I am not German and would not recognize the actors.  I do know they are outstanding in this movie.  Having seen a lot of submarine movies, I can attest to the difficulty of fleshing out more than a few of the crew.  Usually the movie concentrates on the officers.  “Das Boot” creates a large number of indelible characters and this is due mainly to the uniformly great acting.  GRADE  =  A+

“The Enemy Below” is a two man show.  Mitchum and Jurgens dominate.  They are as solid as you would expect.  However, since their characters are flawless, they don’t have to display much acting chops.  The supporting cast is low rent, but capable.    GRADE  =  C 

HALFTIME SCORE:  Das Boot  =  19

                                   The Enemy Below  =  14

TACTICS:  “Das Boot” is tactically sound, with one major exception.  U-96 relies on radiograms to put it in contact with convoys.  The boat is submerged when it should be and on the surface when it makes sense (aside from that exception).  It makes a night surface attack on a convoy and marvel at the lack of escorts and then get surprised when a destroyer shows up.  Next time you wonder about why things are so easy, try scanning better.  The Captain refuses to pick up survivors of a tanker which would have been per doctrine.  The cat and mouse moves the Captain makes are realistic.  The movie (or maybe I should just blame the Captain) goes off the rails when the Captain decides to run the heavily defended Strait of Gibraltar on the surface.  Even at night, this is very questionable and has expected results.  GRADE  =  B

Tactically, “The Enemy Below” is more about anti-submarine warfare than submarine warfare.  To be fair, let’s concentrate on the tactics used by the USS Haynes.  The use of sonar to track the sub and depth charges to attack it are depicted in detail.  It’s a tutorial.  The ramming of the sub is also something that is realistic.  The problem is that the destroyer escort relies mainly on a captain who is an escort savant.  Murrell can guess exactly what the German will do and when he will do it.  He knows exactly when to feather torpedoes he lured von Solberg into firing at him.  Below the surface, von Stolberg is portrayed as a master tactician and yet he travels on the surface during daylight allowing a destroyer escort to sneak up on his boat and then later comes to the surface to finish the predator off with a torpedo.  But then, how would we end up with a tie if he did the safer thing?  There is also something about the sub emitting some substance that acts as a countermeasure to sonar.  That was a new one for me.  How else would the sub escape the relentless pinging?    GRADE  =  C

THIRD QUARTER SCORE:  Das Boot  =  27

                                               The Enemy Below  =  20

CLICHES:  “Das Boot” has every opportunity to ladle on the clichés and you might have expected a German equivalent to “U-571”.  However, it is admirably original for a sub movie released in 1981.  U-96 does go way below crush depth, but that is surprisingly not a common cliché.  There is a depth charging that is amazingly accurate, although the movie avoids showing the depth charges floating down.  It has the emergency repair trope.  Actually, repairs plural.  Hell, virtually everything on the boat has to be repaired!  GRADE  =  B

Once again, I must remind that “The Enemy Below” is more of a destroyer escort movie than a submarine movie, so it does not have a full 1:37 to fit in clichés.  Kudos for getting a black mess mate onto the USS Hayne.  We do get a depth charging from the sub perspective.  There is some minor jostling and some easily sealed leaks.  They go below crush depth to rest on the bottom, but it’s not suspenseful.  GRADE  =  B

FINAL SCORE:  Das Boot  =  35

                           The Enemy Below  =  28

ANALYSIS:  “The Enemy Below” is a good movie that manages to be fair to both the sub and the destroyer escort pursuing it.  It is different than all the other sub movies in this respect.  It is also significant that it depicts the u-boat captain as being as heroic and honorable as the ship captain.  This makes the movie entertaining, but too simplistic.  Interestingly, von Stolberg (“The Enemy Below”) and Lehmann-Willenbrock (“Das Boot”) are similar in their cynicism, but the latter is much more realistically war-weary.  And so is his boat.  After you watch “Das Boot”, it is hard to watch the interior views in “The Enemy Below” without shaking your head.  The interior of the u-boat in “The Enemy Below” could not be more different than the U-96.  It is pristine and spacious.  This is one sub movie that eschews claustrophobia.  It makes you realize just how realistic “Das Boot” is.     

SUB MOVIE: Crash Dive (1943)

                “Crash Dive” is a mid-WWII sub movie directed by Archie Mayo (his only war movie).  It starred Tyrone Power who had enlisted in the Marine Corps.  His trip to boot camp was delayed so he could finish the film.  He did not make another movie until 1946.  The sacrifices women had to make for the war effort!   Power would eventually retire as a Major in the Marine Corps Reserve.  The movie had the full cooperation of the Pentagon which hoped for a recruiting boost from it.  Mayo was allowed to film at New London Submarine Base, but no newer subs were allowed to appear on film.  The film was made in technicolor, which indicates its importance as far as the studio was concerned.

                The movie raises a red flag immediately when it plops a PT boat in the middle of the Atlantic.  Lt. Stuart (Power) picks up survivors of a u-boat sinking, spots the u-boat, and sinks it with depth charges.  None of those things happened in the Atlantic during the entire war.  Stuart is a huge fan of PT boats.  If he could, he would marry one.  However, his admiral uncle persuades him (for the good of recruitment) to join the silent service.  He is sent to New London, Connecticut and assigned exec to Lt. Commander Dewey Connors (Dana Andrews).  While on leave he puts the moves on a teacher named Jean (Anne Baxter) who is taking some girls on a field trip to Washington.  At first, Jean is turned off by the wolfish Stuart, but he persists in a predatory way.  He is so successful that the school marm goes out on the town with him, leaving the girls alone in a hotel room.  Then she guiltily rushes home, thus ending the girls’ trip early.  Did I mention she is engaged to Connors?  That’s right, she’s a slutty school teacher.  Stuart may be a sexual predator, but at least he does not know that Jean is engaged to his CO.

                The USS Corsair (with black mess mate on board) goes on patrol in the Atlantic.  Apparently it is the entire Atlantic sub fleet as every other boat should be in the Pacific.  They encounter a Swedish freighter, but it opens fire.  It’s a Q-ship!  Those dastardly Nazis.  Luckily, the Q-ship is a terrible shot and cannot hit a stationary sub before it crash dives.  Instead of putting a torpedo in the helpless ship, Connors hides on the bottom.  He uses the classic expelling debris trickery to escape.  He and Stuart bond through the depth charge experience.  They are best friends when they return to base for a binge of fruits, vegetables, and milk!  This all becomes awkward when they found out that they have something in common – Jean.  She’s in love with Stuart by now, for plot purposes.  The command dysfunction cliché kicks in just in time for their special mission to destroy the Q-ship base.  If you think the love triangle is ridiculous, wait for one of the most ludicrous commando raids in sub movie history.  Try to stick around for Stuart’s paean to every type of ship in the US Navy.  Young men, I may love PT-boats and submarines, but there are other options.  Buy war bonds!

                “Crash Dive” is a propaganda and patriotic soufflé.  It is very fluffy and looks good in its glorious technicolor, but it is not very filling.  In fact, the technicolor is the only thing that stands out.  Everything else is second-rate.  The script could hardly have been worse.  It attaches the dusty love triangle to unbelievable sub action.  It does reinvent the love triangle a bit by having the female be the weak leg and having all three legs intact at the end.  I do not think the screenwriters (and most of the audience) bothered to consider that Jean betrays Connors for a man that manipulated her and she falls in love with that guy.  But he’s Tyrone Power, so it’s okay.  Even Connors accepts that fact.  With the love triangle sucking the air out of the movie, there is no room for depiction of sailor life.  The film does develop an interesting relationship between the black steward and the crusty Chief.  And it gives the steward some action.  This for a 1943 movie.  Kudos!  The acting is not a detriment.  Power, Baxter, and Andrews are solid, although Power is forced to give that gag-inducing speech at the end. 

                “Crash Dive” is in the “one Oscar club” of sub movies along with “The Enemy Below”, “Torpedo Run”, “U-571”, and “Hunt for Red October”.  In this case the award was for Best Visual Effects and maybe they were awesome in 1943, but they are underawesome today.  The Q-ship base set is particularly fake-looking.  And the raid on that base is so full of pyrotechnics and expenditure of ammo that you would swear you were watching a John Woo film.  A bad John Woo film.  The fire and explosions build to one of the most laughable scenes in sub movie history as Connors pilots the semi-submerged sub past a shore battery.  Try not to chortle.  And try not to believe that anything in the movie is historically accurate.  The movie insults my intelligence.  Why place PT-boats and subs in the Atlantic?  I can understand putting the smoochy stuff in New London, but all oceans look alike so why isn’t the Corsair in the Pacific with its brethren?  The Germans had Q-ships, but so did the Japanese and the idea of an island base in the Atlantic is crazy.  I can only assume the studio felt the public wanted roasted Nazis more than dead Japs in 1943.

GRADE  =  D

SUB MOVIE: We Dive at Dawn (1943)

                “We Dive at Dawn” is possibly the best British sub movie.  It was directed by Anthony Asquith and released mid-war.  The Admiralty gave full cooperation and the exterior views are of two S-class boats.  The interiors are reconstructions of those boats.  Star John Mills went on a training run on a sub, much to the discomfort of his innards when the sub crash dived.  The movie has been overshadowed by films like “49^th Parallel”, “In Which We Serve”, and “The Cruel Sea”, but belongs in their company.

                The HMS Sea Tiger returns from an uneventful patrol and the crew is looking forward to leave.  As with “In Which We Serve”, the movie concentrates on three of the men.  Lt. Taylor (Mills) is the skipper and he has a little black book that he plans on utilizing for recreation over rest.  That’s right – John Mills as a ladies’ man.  Corrigan (Niall MacGinnis) provides comic relief as the sailor who is scheming to avoid his impending nuptials to the Coxswain’s sister.  Hobson (Eric Portman) is attempting to repair his broken marriage.  All this will have to wait when the sub gets an emergency mission to sink a German battleship.  “Leave?  I nearly ran into myself coming back”.  On their way to intercept the warship, they have to crash dive to avoid a plane.  Taylor records the following in the log:  “Spotted plane approaching.  Looked like one of ours.  So dived immediately.”  Sly smile.  They rescue three German airmen from a rescue buoy.  Surely the only time this device has appeared in a movie.  I discovered that these buoys were placed by the Germans for succor for downed crews.  They were like a floating dorm room with supplies and a radio.  Interesting.  The sub has to pass through a mine field with the obligatory mine cable scraping along the side.  They ram their way through a submarine net.  Another unique moment.  They find their target, fire at it, get depth charged and escape with the usual cinematic trickery.  Unfortunately, running low on fuel, it looks like they will have to scuttle the boat and accept internment.  Unless some jilted seaman with no will to live, a captured German’s uniform, and an ability to speak German comes up with a bold plan.

                “We Dive at Dawn” is one of the better sub movies.  And it was made in 1943.  Frankly, the only weakness of the film is the sub warfare.  The special effects are rudimentary.  You don’t see the depth charges, but the jostling about is nicely done.  The traversing of the minefield lacks suspense and the ramming of the net is on the silly side.  The movie’s big set piece in the enemy harbor is equally silly, but rousing.  It is probably the best commando scene in any sub movie.  The post script of the sub returning to the acclaim of the fleet is the cherry on top.  The strengths of the movie are in its characters.  The movie has an excellent cast.  Everyone knows Mills’ work in war movies, but it is easy to forget what a player Portman was back then.  He was coming off of “49^th Parallel” and “One of Our Aircraft is Missing” and would later appear in “The Colditz Story” and “The Bedford Incident”.  Hobson is a great character who goes from being a jerk to a hero realistically.  The decision to introduce the main characters by way of the shore leave was a good one and it is a shame the leave was cut short because those scenes are among the best in the movie.  The dialogue is excellent, although unless (and even if) you watch a lot of British films, you might wish for subtitles.  The sailor banter is fun, provided you can decipher the accents.  Speaking of which, you can tell a lot about the intelligence level of a movie by whether it subtitles the Germans.  This movie does not.

                Although the movie has a documentary look to it, it is not based on a true story.  There was no German battleship named Brandenburg.  No German battleships were lost to subs in WWII.  The commando raid is clearly fictional.  This means the movie is pure entertainment and achieves its goal of being a crowd-pleaser.  Especially if it’s a British crowd during the war.

GRADE  =  B+