Wednesday, January 08, 2014

Movie Review: The Enemy Below

It's cold outside. So today, the dogs and I decided to watch The Enemy Below, a 1956 picture about a contest between a US Navy destroyer and a German submarine in World War Two.

The two skippers are played by Robert Mitchum on the Navy side, and Curd Jurgens below. Both are perfect for the roles and the movie revolves as much around them as it does their fight to the death.



I won't give away the fantastic ending but I will share that epic scene where the destroyer has the U-boat pinned down and the U-Boat Commander shows both his own crew and the US Navy that he's nowhere near cowed.


See this movie. You can find it all over the internet and it's worth a few bucks even if you have to rent it. Dogs and I give it four paws up.

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:01 PM

    I recently watched this on Turner Classic Movies.
    I agree it is a great movie

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  2. Yep, a true classic of wartime!

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  3. Hey Murphy,

    It is one of my favorite movies, I can watch it all the time. Funny thing is that the German Skipper was actually a dissident German from the Hitler era if memory serves. Robert Mitchum was on the top of his game during this time. Excellent movie. Also the Original Star Trek series episode "Balance of Terror" was based on that movie.

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  4. An excellent movie and the basis for The Star Trek episode from the original series "Balance of Terror". A surface ship and a cloaked adversary in a duel of wits. I need to get the movie back out. Thanks!

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  5. It beats the hell out of "Das Boot".

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  6. You are watching a bunch of great ones. Try looking up "The Cruel Sea". It is on youtube. British Corvette vs the North Atlantic and the occaisional U-boat.

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  7. "It beats the hell out of "Das Boot"."

    I'm a submariner, and from my point of view, I disagree. The two movies are different, and both were good, but "Das Boot" was the most realistic submarine movie ever made. To get an idea of what I am talking about, there are over 20 museum submarines around the country - including U-505 in Chicago. Go on a tour of any one of them, and then compare that experience with what you see of the interiors of submarines in Hollywood.

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