THE ENEMY BELOW

We are in the South Atlantic in World War II for a cat-and-mouse conflict between a US destroyer and a German U-boat.

So cue the familiar tropes. Depth charges vs torpedoes.  Tense periods of silence wherein a guy with a headset tries to work out where the hell the enemy is.  Captains able to read the mind of the enemy captain one minute, yet making a foolish error the next.  The sub being taken down to a depth it’s not designed for.

It’s all here.  Admittedly we don’t get the scene where the sub ejects clothes etc to give the impression it is kaput but by way of compensation the destroyer captain does order his men to set fires on deck to exaggerate the damage it has incurred.

So yes, this film is predictable but it’s directed well enough to hold my attention and to generate some excitement at the end.  There’s even a nice visual moment when we follow a fishing line down from the deck of the destroyer through the surface of the water to reveal the U-boat below resting on the sea bed. 

The director is Dick Powell who first made his name as an actor in 1930s musicals (think '42nd Street' and 'Gold Diggers of 1933'). 

It helps the film considerably that the captain of the destroyer is reliable Robert Mitchum, always watchable although he seems to be sleepwalking through it all, even when he is recounting the horrific circumstances in which his wife died.  

Curt Jurgens is equally fine as the German captain who we know is basically decent because he’s no fan of the Führer.

There are a couple of clunky bits of dialogue between Mitchum and the ship’s doctor but apart from that we can enjoy uninterrupted the battle of wits between the two captains, which may not add anything to this sub-genre but is always watchable.

RATING: ✓ Cheers