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 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| 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.
The film received the 1958 Academy Award for best special effects.
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[edit] Plot
The movie revolves around a Buckley-class destroyer escort, USS Haynes (DE-181), and a German U-boat attempting to rendezvous with a German merchant raider in the South Atlantic Ocean. The Haynes is commanded by Captain Murrell (Mitchum), a former merchant marine sailor. Murrell engages in a deadly battle of wits with U-boat Kapitän von Stolberg (Jürgens). In the end, Murrell rams the U-boat with his ship, sinking both.
[edit] Differences with 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 Nazi subordinate 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. 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 amid the flaming wreckage of both their craft, 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 WW2 film Hell in the Pacific (1969) 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.
- David Hedison as Lieutenant Ware, Murrell's executive officer
- Russell Collins as Murrell's shipboard doctor
- Kurt Kreuger as Von Holem
[edit] Production
The destroyer escort Straub was portrayed by USS Whitehurst (DE-634), filmed in the Pacific Ocean near Oahu, Hawaii. Many of the Whitehurst's crewmen participated. 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 role of the engineering officer. He is the man seen reading the comics during the lull before the action. The Whitehurst website, linked below, has more on this story including several still photos taken during the filming.
[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] External links
- The Enemy Below at the Internet Movie Database
- home page of the USS Whitehurst
- DVD review at dvdtalk.com
- DVD review at dvdcult.com
[edit] Reference
- Rayner, D.A., The Enemy Below, London:Collins 1956
