The Enemy Below
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| The Enemy Below | |
|---|---|
 Movie Poster |
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| Directed by | Dick Powell |
| Produced by | Dick Powell |
| Written by | Wendell Mayes Denys Rayner (novel) |
| Starring | Robert Mitchum Curt Jurgens Theodore Bikel David Hedison |
| Music by | Leigh Harline |
| Cinematography | Harold Rosson |
| Editing by | Stuart Gilmore |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | December 25, 1957 (NYC premiere) |
| Running time | 98 minutes |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Enemy Below is a 1957 war film which tells the story of the battle between the captain of an American destroyer escort and the commander of a German U-boat during World War II. It stars Robert Mitchum, Curt Jürgens, David Hedison and Theodore Bikel. The movie was directed and produced by Dick Powell. The film was based on a novel by Denys Rayner, a British naval officer involved in anti-submarine warfare throughout the Second Battle of the Atlantic.
Walter Rossi received the 1958 Academy Award for best special effects.
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[edit] Plot
The movie revolves around a battle between an American Buckley-class destroyer escort, the USS Haynes (DE-181), and a German U-boat that is attempting to rendezvous with a German merchant raider in the South Atlantic Ocean. Captain Murrell (Mitchum), a former sailor in the merchant marine, has recently taken command of the Haynes, even though he is still weak from having survived the sinking of his previous ship. When the U-boat is first detected, some members of the crew of the Haynes doubt their unfamiliar captain's fitness and ability. However, Murrell shows himself to be a match for wily U-boat Kapitän von Stolberg (Jürgens) in a prolonged, deadly battle of wits that tests both men and their crews. Each men grows to respect his opponent.
In the end, von Stolberg succeeds in torpedoing the destroyer. However, Murrell has one last trick up his sleeve. He has his men set fires on the deck to make the ship look more damaged than it actually is, hoping to lure the submarine into range. When von Stolberg surfaces to finish off the Haynes, Murrell rams the U-boat with his sinking ship. Both vessels are lost. When Murrell spots von Stolberg struggling to get his dying friend, 'Heinie' Schwaffer (Theodore Bikel), to safety, he lends his assistance. The survivors are rescued by another American destroyer.
[edit] Differences from the novel
In the movie, pipe-smoking, chess-playing British captain Murrell becomes Mitchum's U.S. navy man. The tension between the aristocratic German captain, contemptuous of Hitler, and a zealous young Nazi subordinate recently assigned to the crew is depicted in the film and may have been the first instance of the "good German, bad German" scenario, though for Rayner, the Prussian U-boat commander still embodies the attitudes and brutal behavior against which Murrell and his crew are fighting. In the novel, Murrell tells his ship's doctor that "unrestricted submarine warfare has never been part of British Naval practice, except of course against enemy warships." The film is more oblique. Murrell lets out that his wife died after his merchant ship was sunk by a torpedo; von Stolberg mentions that both of his sons have died in the war. In the film, von Stolberg calms and reassures a panicking sailor running amok with a wrench; in the novel, he shoots him. The reconciliation between the commanders in the movie's finale, beginning with a mutual salute aboard the flaming wrecks of both their vessels, differs from Rayner's version where, after a courteous overture by Murrell is rebuffed by von Stolberg, both commanders and the rest of the swimming survivors remain "locked in deadly combat", swapping punches in the sea - an ending more reminiscent of John Boorman's 1969 World War II film Hell in the Pacific, starring Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune.
[edit] Cast
- Robert Mitchum as Captain Murrell
- Curt Jurgens as Kapitän von Stolberg. Jurgens was imprisoned by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels during World War II.
- Theodore Bikel as 'Heinie' Schwaffer, von Stolberg's second in command. Bikel is an immigrant Austrian Jew who was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1924. He and his family fled to America by way of Palestine in 1937.
- Al Hedison as Lieutenant Ware, the executive officer of the Haynes
- Russell Collins as Doctor, USS Haynes
- Kurt Kreuger as Von Holem
- Frank Albertson as Lieutenant Junior Grade Crain, USS Haynes
- Biff Elliot as Quartermaster, USS Haynes
[edit] Production
The destroyer escort USS Haynes was portrayed by USS Whitehurst (DE-634), filmed in the Pacific Ocean near Oahu, Hawaii. Many of the Whitehurst's crewmen acted in the film: The phone talkers, the gun and depth charge crews, the sailor fishing, and all of the men seen abandoning ship, were Whitehurst sailors. The ship's commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Walter Smith, played the engineering officer. He is the man seen reading comics (Little Orphan Annie) during the lull before the action. See the Whitehurst website below for more on this story, including several still photos taken during filming.
[edit] Comparison with the real DE-181
The original DE-181 was the USS Straub, a Buckley Class escort destroyer; also described in the movie. She did have 3x3 torpedo tubes where the movie indicated that she did not. She did serve off the coast of Trinidad, Spain; but after the battle with a German U-boat. The Straub did recovery the crew of a German U-boat like in the movie, but the sub was struck and sank by aircraft during combat in 1944, off the coast of Recife, Brazil, like in movie. [1]
[edit] "Remakes"
- The Star Trek episode "Balance of Terror" followed the plot of The Enemy Below fairly closely. The major differences occur at the end. The Enterprise doesn't ram the other ship, and the Romulan commander blows up his disabled ship (with all aboard) rather than be taken prisoner.
- The Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea episode "Killers of the Deep" was not only based on this movie, it also re-used substantial amounts of footage from it.
[edit] Trivia
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- The U-boat U-405 was rammed by the destroyer USS Borie (DD-215) and sank. The Borie was too badly damaged to salvage and was sunk the next day.
- The tune sung by the U-boat crew on the ocean floor between depth charge attacks is from an 18th century march called "Der Dessauer Marsch". As a more popular song, it's also known by the first line of lyrics: "So leben wir" ("That's how we live").
[edit] References
- Rayner, D.A., The Enemy Below, London:Collins 1956
