The Enemy Below

Very good WW 2 drama thriller movie about Submarine warfare and tactics.Very good all around production and acting performances.Has an anti-war flow to it and manages to maintain believability despite unusual enemy mutual empathy from the combatants.Very entertaining and a great example of a well paced film.Could have been a masterpiece with a slightly deeper and more complicated story.Only for fans of Submarine warfare films and big fans of the lead actors........

Not being a fan of the genre, I wasn't expecting much from this 1950's war film, but I was pleasantly surprised. "The Enemy Below" manages to work both as a tense, convincing action thriller AND as a thoughtful character study. It presents the two opposing sides objectively, doesn't set up the Germans as maniacal villains and sends home its message about the futility of war. The director shows remarkable attention to detail, and it's hard to find even one boring minute in this movie. (***)

What's really impressive about this movie is the photography. When you see Robert Mitchum actually standing on the deck of a destroyer with depth charges going off behind it, you know somebody went to a lot of trouble to get all this on film. That destroyer is no movie set. You'll find very few backdrops and special effects here except for underwater shots of the enemy U-boat, and even those are above average. It all seems ahead of its time somehow, the brilliant color footage, the musical score, and the attention to detail. The Enemy Below is a fascinating study of WW2 anti-submarine warfare. Although the ending is a little corny, the anti-war message is timeless and quite appropriate. Especially now (Oct. 2004) as America is being dragged into another real conflict. It's certainly worth a look.

A test of cunning and courage between the commander of an American destroyer (Robert Mitchum) and the captain of a german U-boat (Curt Jurgens). The movie was one of the first to portray the enemy of WWII sympathetic.Jurgens made his American film debut after being a star in European films.Director Dick Powell (who had crooned in Warner musicals in the early 30s,and became a considerable actor in the part of Philip Marlowe during the War) injects the film with exciting pace and a clinical observation of men at war.There are no unnecessary heroics in this movie.