The Enemy Below
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''The Enemy Below'' is a 1957
DeLuxe Color DeLuxe Color or Deluxe color or Color by DeLuxe is Deluxe Laboratories brand of color process for motion pictures. DeLuxe Color is Eastmancolor-based, with certain adaptations for improved compositing for printing (similar to Technicolor's "sele ...
war film War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about naval, air, or land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle scenes means that war fi ...
in
CinemaScope CinemaScope is an anamorphic lens series used, from 1953 to 1967, and less often later, for shooting widescreen films that, crucially, could be screened in theatres using existing equipment, albeit with a lens adapter. Its creation in 1953 by ...
about a battle between an
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
destroyer escort and a German U-boat during World War II. Produced and directed by
Dick Powell Richard Ewing Powell (November 14, 1904 – January 2, 1963) was an American actor, musician, producer, director, and studio head. Though he came to stardom as a musical comedy performer, he showed versatility, and successfully transformed into ...
, the movie stars Robert Mitchum and
Curt Jürgens Kurt is a male given name of Germanic or Turkish origin. ''Kurt'' or ''Curt'' originated as short forms of the Germanic Conrad, depending on geographical usage, with meanings including counselor or advisor. In Turkish, Kurt means "Wolf" and i ...
as the American and German commanding officers. The film was based on the 1956 novel by
Denys Rayner Denys Arthur Rayner Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom), DSC & Bar, Volunteer Reserve Decoration, VRD, History of the Royal Naval Reserve#Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, RNVR (9 February 1908 – 4 January 1967) was a Royal Navy officer who ...
, a British naval officer involved in anti-submarine warfare throughout the
Battle of the Atlantic The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II. At its core was the Allied naval blockade ...
.


Plot

The American USS ''Haynes'' detects and attacks a German U-boat that is on its way to rendezvous with a German merchant raider in the South Atlantic Ocean. Lieutenant Commander Murrell, a former officer in the Merchant Marine and now an active duty officer in the Naval Reserve, has recently taken command of the ''Haynes'', even though he is still recovering from injuries incurred in the sinking of his previous ship. Before the U-boat is first spotted, one sailor questions the new captain's fitness and ability. However, as the battle begins, Murrell proves himself a match for wily U-boat ''Kapitän zur See'' von Stolberg, a man who is not enamored with the Nazi regime, in a prolonged and deadly battle of wits that tests both men and their crews. Each man grows to respect his opponent. Murrell skillfully stalks the U-boat and subjects von Stolberg and his crew to hourly depth-charge attacks. In the end, von Stolberg takes advantage of Murrell's predictable pattern of attacks and succeeds in torpedoing the destroyer escort. Although the ''Haynes'' is sinking, it is still battle-capable, and Murrell has one final plan: he orders his men to set fires on the deck to make the ship look more damaged than it actually is. He then orders the majority of his crew to evacuate in the lifeboats, but retains a skeleton crew to man the bridge, engine room and one of his ship's guns. As Murrell had hoped, von Stolberg surfaces before firing his torpedoes, keeping the deck gun trained on the ship. Murrell orders his gun crew to fire first at the U-boat's stern to immobilize it, and then at the deck gun. Murrell
rams In engineering, RAMS (reliability, availability, maintainability and safety)scuttling charges Scuttling is the deliberate sinking of a ship. Scuttling may be performed to dispose of an abandoned, old, or captured vessel; to prevent the vessel from becoming a navigation hazard; as an act of self-destruction to prevent the ship from being ...
and abandon ship. Murrell, the last man aboard, is about to join his crew in the lifeboats when he spots von Stolberg standing on the conning tower of the sinking U-boat with his injured executive officer ''
Oberleutnant zur See ''Oberleutnant zur See'' (''OLt zS'' or ''OLZS'' in the German Navy, ''Oblt.z.S.'' in the ''Kriegsmarine'') is traditionally the highest rank of Lieutenant in the German Navy. It is grouped as OF-1 in NATO. The rank was introduced in the Imper ...
'' Heini Schwaffer. Murrell tosses a line to the submarine and rescues the pair. It is clear that Schwaffer is dying, but von Stolberg refuses to leave his friend behind. Lieutenant Ware returns with American and German sailors in the captain's gig to take the three men off before the U-boat's scuttling charges detonate. Later, aboard a ship that has rescued both crews, the German crew buries Schwaffer at sea as the American crew respectfully watches.


Cast

* Robert Mitchum as Captain Murrell * Curd Jürgens as ''Kapitän zur See'' von Stolberg * Theodore Bikel as ''
Oberleutnant zur See ''Oberleutnant zur See'' (''OLt zS'' or ''OLZS'' in the German Navy, ''Oblt.z.S.'' in the ''Kriegsmarine'') is traditionally the highest rank of Lieutenant in the German Navy. It is grouped as OF-1 in NATO. The rank was introduced in the Imper ...
'' "Heinie" Schwaffer, von Stolberg's second in command * David Hedison as Lieutenant Ware, the executive officer of ''Haynes'' (as Al Hedison) *
Russell Collins Russell Collins (born Russell Henry Collins, October 11, 1897 – November 14, 1965) was an American actor whose 43-year career included hundreds of performances on stage, in feature films, and on television. Early life Born in 1897 in Indiana ...
as Doctor *
Kurt Kreuger Kurt Kreuger (July 23, 1916 – July 12, 2006) was a Swiss-reared German actor. Kreuger once was the third-most-requested male actor at 20th Century Fox. He starred with, among others, Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart. Life and career Kreuger w ...
as von Holem * Frank Albertson as Lieutenant (junior grade) Crain *
Biff Elliot Biff Elliot (born Leon Shalek; July 26, 1923 – August 15, 2012) was an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as popular detective Mike Hammer in the 1953 version of ''I, the Jury'' and for his guest appearance as Schmitter in ...
as Quartermaster * Ralph Manza as Lieutenant Bonelli (uncredited) * Doug McClure as Ensign Merry (uncredited) * Darryl F. Zanuck as
Chief Chief may refer to: Title or rank Military and law enforcement * Chief master sergeant, the ninth, and highest, enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force * Chief of police, the head of a police department * Chief of the boa ...
(uncredited)


Production


Writing

The screenplay, which was adapted by
Wendell Mayes Wendell Curran Mayes (July 21, 1919 – March 28, 1992) was a Hollywood screenwriter. Background Wendell Curran Mayes was born on July 21, 1919, in Hayti, Missouri. His father, Von Mayes, was a lawyer, and his mother, Irene (née Haynes), w ...
, differs substantially from the original book. In the novel, the ship is British but in the film it is American. The screenplay's final scenes of mutual respect between the protagonists are not taken from the book. In the book, the destroyer captain takes a swing at the U-boat captain while they are in the lifeboat because the U-boat captain claims that the destroyer crew are his prisoners. The film also vaguely alludes to evil as such (or the devil), not specifically the Nazis, being the "enemy" ("You cut off one head and it grows another..."). This gives the title of ''The Enemy Below'' a double meaning not present in the book. The screenplay has historical precedence. On 6 May 1944, , which was the lead ship of the same destroyer escort class portrayed in ''The Enemy Below'', actually rammed and sank a U-boat in combat before capturing many of the German crew.


Casting

The anti-Nazi U-boat captain was portrayed by actor Curd Jürgens, who had been an actual critic of Nazism in his native Germany. In 1944, after filming ''
Wiener Mädeln ''Viennese Girls'' (German: ''Wiener Mädeln'') is a 1945 historical musical film directed by Willi Forst and starring Forst, Anton Edthofer and Judith Holzmeister. The film was made by Wien-Film, a Vienna-based company set up after Austria had b ...
'', he got into an argument with Robert Kaltenbrunner (brother of high-ranking Austrian SS official
Ernst Kaltenbrunner Ernst Kaltenbrunner (4 October 190316 October 1946) was a high-ranking Austrian SS official during the Nazi era and a major perpetrator of the Holocaust. After the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, and a brief period under Heinrich ...
), SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny and a member of
Baldur von Schirach Baldur Benedikt von Schirach (9 May 1907 – 8 August 1974) was a German politician who is best known for his role as the Nazi Party national youth leader and head of the Hitler Youth from 1931 to 1940. He later served as ''Gauleiter'' and ''Re ...
's staff in a Viennese bar without knowing who they were. Jürgens was arrested and sent to a
labor camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...
for the "politically unreliable" in Hungary. After a few weeks he managed to escape and went into hiding. Jürgens became an Austrian citizen after the war. The destroyer escort USS ''Haynes'' (DE-181) was represented in the film by the , provided by the US Navy in Pearl Harbor. Many of the actual ship's crew appear in the film; such as the phone talkers, the gun and depth charge crews, and all of the men seen abandoning ship. The ''Whitehurst''s commanding officer Lieutenant Commander Walter Smith played the engineering officer. He is the man seen reading comics (''
Little Orphan Annie ''Little Orphan Annie'' is a daily American comic strip created by Harold Gray and syndicated by the Tribune Media Services. The strip took its name from the 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley, and it made its debut on Aug ...
'') during the lull before the action while an enlisted man is reading '' The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire''. The ''Whitehurst'' was sunk as a target in 1971. The real DE-181 was , a (scrapped 1974).


Filming

Despite being set in the South Atlantic, filming took place in the Pacific Ocean near Oahu, Hawaii.


Music

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 The Dessauer Marsch (Armeemarsch I, 1b) is a slow infantry march. It is believed that the march originated from Italy. The melody of a folk song was played for Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, after the Battle of Cassano (1705). He enjoyed th ...
," known by the first line of lyrics as "So leben wir" ("That's how we live"). The burial hymn in the final scene is " Ich hatt' einen Kameraden."


Awards and nominations

For the audio effects,
Walter Rossi Walter Rossi (July 12, 1894 – February 12, 1978) was a sound editor who won 1 Academy Award and was nominated for 2 more Academy Awards. Oscar nominations * 1957 Academy Awards-Award for '' The Enemy Below'' in the category of Best Special ...
received the 1958 Academy Award for Best Special Effects. The film was also awarded as the best sound-edited feature of 1957 by the Motion Picture Sound Editors.


In popular culture

* The 1966 ''
Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...
'' episode "
Balance of Terror The phrase "balance of terror" is usually, but not invariably,Rich Miller, Simon Kennedy'G-20 Plans to End 'Financial Balance of Terror' After Summit,'Bloomberg 27 February 2009. used in reference to the nuclear arms race between the United State ...
" is closely based on the film, with the USS ''Enterprise'' cast as the destroyer and the Romulan vessel, using a
cloaking device A cloaking device is a hypothetical or fictional stealth technology that can cause objects, such as spaceships or individuals, to be partially or wholly invisible to parts of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. Fictional cloaking devices have bee ...
, as the U-boat. *
Nicholas Meyer Nicholas Meyer (born December 24, 1945) is an American writer and director, known for his best-selling novel ''The Seven-Per-Cent Solution'', and for directing the films ''Time After Time (1979 film), Time After Time'', two of the ''Star Trek'' ...
has cited the film as an inspiration for The Wrath of Khan. * The '' Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea'' episode "Killers of the Deep" reused substantial amounts of footage from the film. David Hedison (then Al Hedison), who played Lieutenant Ware, the executive officer of the ''Haynes'', also played Commander Lee Crane on ''Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea''. * In the 1995 film '' Crimson Tide'', two USS ''Alabama'' officers debate about the cast of ''The Enemy Below''.


See also

* List of American films of 1957 *
USS Borie (DD-215) USS ''Borie'' (DD-215) was a in the United States Navy during World War II. She was the first ship named for Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of the Navy, Adolph E. Borie. She served in the Black Sea, the Asiatic Fleet and the Caribbean between t ...
the real U-Boat Destroyer story


References

* Rayner, D.A., ''The Enemy Below'', London: Collins 1956


External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Enemy Below, The 1957 films 1957 war films American war films Films based on British novels Films directed by Dick Powell Films that won the Best Visual Effects Academy Award 20th Century Fox films CinemaScope films U-boat fiction Films about the United States Navy in World War II World War II submarine films Films with screenplays by Wendell Mayes Films about the United States Navy Films scored by Leigh Harline 1950s English-language films 1950s American films