''Ghostboat'' is a 2006 British

television film A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...

, based on a novel by George E. Simpson and Neal R. Burger. The film features

David Jason Sir David John White (born 2 February 1940), known professionally by his stage name David Jason, is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Derek "Del Boy" Trotter in the BBC sitcom '' Only Fools and Horses'', Detective Inspector ...

as its star. It is a fantasy tale of His Majesty's Submarine ''Scorpion'' vanishing during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, leaving only one crew member (David Jason) surviving. 38 years later, in the Cold War year 1981, the ''Scorpion'' reappears; the crew have disappeared, but the vessel is otherwise unchanged and has not aged in the intervening years. A

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

crew along with the sole survivor of the original voyage is given the mission of retracing the last days of the boat prior to its 1943 disappearance. A supernatural influence takes hold of most of the crew, and they start showing characteristics of the old crew. They find themselves fighting Second World War ghosts.

Plot

HMS ''Scorpion'', a British submarine that had gone missing in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and ...

during the Second World War, surfaces in the path of a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

freighter in 1981. The vessel is returned to British custody. Naval Intelligence is interested in the case because it seems that, for the first time, a ship has returned from ''"the Devil's Triangle of the North"''. The submarine opens its own hatch to let the investigating team in, where they find the vessel in a state of perfect preservation, but find no sign of the crew. Jack Hardy is the only surviving member of the original crew, having been found floating and rescued in 1943 by members of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine; but he has no memory of the last days of the 1943 mission. He and Alan Cassidy, one of the vessel's designers, join a

crew on a mission to retrace ''Scorpions last days before it went missing. Commander Travis, a

naval intelligence Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a ...

officer, is in charge of the mission while Captain Byrnes captains the submarine. The mission will take the submarine into Soviet waters, and a surface ship, HMS ''Oakland,'' escorts the boat. Once in the Baltic, the current crew begins to take on the personalities and identities of the dead crew, and the boat takes a degree of control over itself. Contact with ''Oakland'' is soon lost. A "Soviet submarine" is detected and through communication error the crew fires upon it and destroys it. ''Scorpion'' surfaces to search for survivors, but, impossibly, no debris is found. Hardy realises that the "Soviet submarine" was destroyed at the exact same place and time where the ''Scorpion'' sank a German

U-boat U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare ro ...

in 1943, and speculates that "the past is breaking through". Cassidy, who had supervised the fitting of the ''Scorpion'' with practice torpedoes, finds that they have become live weapons. Captain Byrnes tries to abort the mission, but Cdr Travis convinces him to continue. Hardy learns that the real mission is to discover and exploit the power that preserved and delivered the ''Scorpion''. Soon, three aircraft are detected on radar whilst the ''Scorpion'' is surfaced. The aircraft are Second World War

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

fighters; Captain Byrnes says in stunned disbelief "This can't be real". Travis pulls out a gun and orders Byrnes below. The fighters then strafe the boat with gunfire. The captain is killed, and Travis takes command. Cassidy and Hardy find no bullet damage on the deck or tower from the strafing attack, and conclude that Travis may have shot the captain to preserve the mission. Travis apparently becomes possessed by the former captain himself. The original submarine captain's intent had been to torpedo ships of the German fleet in the then German city of

Königsberg Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was name ...

, which is now the Soviet city of

Kaliningrad Kaliningrad ( ; rus, Калининград, p=kəlʲɪnʲɪnˈɡrat, links=y), until 1946 known as Königsberg (; rus, Кёнигсберг, Kyonigsberg, ˈkʲɵnʲɪɡzbɛrk; rus, Короле́вец, Korolevets), is the largest city and ...

. Modern Soviet officers detect the incoming hostile vessel, and begin preparations for a nuclear war. Hardy manages to get the crew off the boat before it can attack the Soviet fleet, but Travis and the submarine, essentially as one entity, continue the attack. Hardy rewires the torpedo control system, causing the torpedoes to explode in the torpedo tubes. The explosion kills Travis, and causes the vessel to sink. Hardy is shot in the process. Hardy dies on his bunk, clutching a picture of his wife as the water engulfs him. Six months later, the Soviets find the sunken ''Scorpion''; it looks like it has been decaying for forty years. Neither Hardy's nor Travis' bodies are found. The Soviets close their investigation of the incident. British intelligence intercepts the Soviet report, leading British military authorities to also close their files on the case. The British Admiral says "There was no Kaliningrad incident; it never happened. The ''Scorpion'' sank in 1943".

Cast

as Jack Hardy *

Ian Puleston-Davies Ian Puleston-Davies (born 6 September 1958) is a Welsh actor and writer. He is best known for his role as builder Owen Armstrong in the ITV (TV network), ITV soap opera ''Coronation Street'' from 2010 to 2015. In November 2014, ITV announced ...

as Travis *

Tony Haygarth George Anthony Haygarth (4 February 1945 – 10 March 2017) was an English television, film and theatre actor. Life and career After leaving Marlborough College, Liverpool, Haygarth worked unsuccessfully in 1963 as a lifeguard in Torquay, and a ...

as Alan Cassidy *

Julian Wadham Julian Neil Rohan Wadham (born 7 August 1958) is an English actor of stage, film and television. He was educated at Ampleforth College and the Central School of Speech and Drama, third son of Rohan Nicholas Wadham DFC and Juliana Wadham, née ...

as Captain Nathan Byrnes *

James Laurenson James Laurenson (born 17 February 1940) is a New Zealand stage and screen actor. Early life Laurenson was born in Marton, North Island, New Zealand. He was a student at Canterbury University College in Christchurch (now University of Canter ...

as Admiral Nealy * Robert Whitelock as Spender *

Crispin Bonham-Carter Crispin Daniel Bonham-Carter (born 23 September 1969 in Colchester, Essex) is an English actor, theatre director, and educator. He was appointed Assistant Head at the Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet, in 2019. His best known acting role is that o ...

as Redding * Jamie Martin as Tyler * Roger Evans as Monroe * Jonathan Cullen as Captain Basquine * Alan Stocks as Peterson *

Lee Whitlock Lee Whitlock (17 April 1968 – 17 February 2023) was a British television and film actor. Of the many roles in film and TV, they included ''Shine on Harvey Moon'' (1982), '' Two of Us'' (1987), '' Casualty'' (1991), ''Grange Hill'' (1993), '' S ...

as Reeves * Mark Callum as Callum * Max Bollinger as Soviet Naval Captain * David Nellist as 1943 Crewman *

Robert Horwell Robert "Bob" Horwell is a British cinematographer and actor who was born in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire. His father, whom he was named after, was a coal merchant and Audrey, his mother, was also a successful small businesswoman. His s ...

as Mason

Production

The film was announced in August 2005. David Jason was enthralled by the book ''Ghostboat'' and adapting it was a long-held wish of hi

The drama aired as two separate 90-minute episodes. It was one of the most expensive dramas ever made by ITV. The submarine used in filming is the non-diving replica, built in

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

as the 'modified' S-''33'' for the film '' U-571'', also shot in Malta. The replica is still afloat, moored in Marsa in the inner part of the

Grand Harbour The Grand Harbour ( mt, il-Port il-Kbir; it, Porto Grande), also known as the Port of Valletta, is a natural harbour on the island of Malta. It has been substantially modified over the years with extensive docks ( Malta Dockyard), wharves, a ...

Film versus novel

The 1972 book ''Ghostboat'' was set in 1974, and revolved around the re-appearance of the Pacific Fleet class Submarine 284 USS ''Candlefish'', thirty years after it disappeared in the Devil's Sea in the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

off the

Kuriles The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (; rus, Кури́льские острова́, r=Kuril'skiye ostrova, p=kʊˈrʲilʲskʲɪjə ɐstrɐˈva; Japanese: or ) are a volcanic archipelago currently administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the ...

, toward Japan. The ''Candlefish'' surfaces in the path of a Japanese freighter northwest of

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the R ...

. The characters and their names remain basically the same (e.g. Alan Cassidy is Walter Cassidy, Travis is Frank Crook) and the mission to re-trace the last days of the ''Candlefish'' has no undercurrent of intrigue. In the original story ''Candlefish'' fell through a Geo-magnetic Anomaly (GMA), one of ten, five in the Northern Hemisphere, five in the Southern; and surfaced in the middle of another. The plot is concerned not so much with ''how'' the submarine came back, but ''why'' it came back. The final mission of the ''Candlefish'' was changed by her captain, to an unplanned entry to

Tokyo Bay is a bay located in the southern Kantō region of Japan, and spans the coasts of Tokyo, Kanagawa Prefecture, and Chiba Prefecture. Tokyo Bay is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Uraga Channel. The Tokyo Bay region is both the most populous ...

, in an attempt to sink anything Japanese, and thus acquire a higher figure for tonnage sunk. This falls rapidly apart as the ''Candlefish'' sinks, with one survivor – Jack Hardy – injured and washed overboard from the conning tower. As the story concludes, ''Candlefish'' risks being unleashed on an unsuspecting Japan in 1974.

Reception

The film received a score of 6.5/10 on Internet Movie Database.

Award nominations

''Ghostboat'' was nominated for the 2006

RTS Television Award The Royal Television Society (RTS) is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present, and future. It is the oldest television society in the world. It currently has fourteen r ...

for Best Sound - Drama.

DVD release

''Ghostboat'' was released on DVD on 15 January 2007, nine months after its first showing on ITV on 9 April 2006.

Notes and references

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ghostboat (Film) 2006 television films 2006 drama films 2006 films 2000s mystery drama films 2000s mystery thriller films 2006 British television series debuts 2006 British television series endings 2000s British drama television series 2000s ghost films World War II television drama series ITV television dramas 2000s British television miniseries Films about spirit possession Films set in 1943 Films set in 1981 Films set in the Baltic Sea Films set in the Soviet Union Television shows based on British novels Television series by ITV Studios Television series by Yorkshire Television English-language television shows Television shows set in England Television shows set in Italy World War II submarine films Cold War submarine films Submarine films Films based on British novels Royal Navy in World War II films