The Enemy Below is a 1957 American DeLuxe Color war film in CinemaScope about a battle between an American destroyer escort and a German U-boat during World War II. Produced and directed by Dick Powell, the movie stars Robert Mitchum and Curt Jürgens as the American and German commanding officers, respectively. The film was based on the 1956 novel of the same name by Denys Rayner, a British naval officer involved in antisubmarine warfare throughout the Battle of the Atlantic.
Plot
The American USS Haynes detects and attacks a German U-boat (Unterseeboot) 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, 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. As the battle begins, though, 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 the U-boat. With his boat sinking, von Stolberg orders his crew to set scuttling charges 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 Heini Schwaffer. Murrell tosses a line to the submarine and rescues the pair. Schwaffer clearly 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 "Heinie" Schwaffer, von Stolberg's second in command David Hedison as Lieutenant Ware, the executive officer of Haynes (as Al Hedison) Russell Collins as Doctor Kurt Kreuger as von Holem Frank Albertson as Lieutenant (junior grade) Crain Biff Elliot as Quartermaster Robbins Ralph Manza as Lieutenant Bonelli (uncredited) Doug McClure as Ensign Merry (uncredited) Darryl F. Zanuck as Chief (uncredited)
Production
Writing
The screenplay, which was adapted by Wendell Mayes, 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 crewmen 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.