The Enemy Below

The Enemy Below Review

Robert Mitchum is a survivor from his previous ship and is now commanding a US destroyer escort. Curt Jurgens is a survivor of the Battle of the Atlantic and is trying to stay alive to carry out a mission. Both men meet in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in a deadly duel of wits. For me it was not so much a matter of good versus evil but men versus the Atlantic as both the German and American ships are damaged and we see two battles, man against man and man against the sea. Both battles are never ending.

Mitchum is saddled with a wardroom of reserve officers with little real knowledge of the sea and has to make do with them. Jurgens has a ship of battle tested men whom he is leading. The contrasts are start at times as we see that one of the men working with to destroy the German submarine is a watchmaker in civilian life and now is working a depth charge rack aboard Mitchum's ship. Jurgens has one officer steeped in the Nazi line and his treatment of him is quite interesting as we see how well he dismantles the officer's arrogance.

In the end, both captains have a wary respect for the professionalism of the other. One might wonder about the respect for a man who's duty is to sink a ship on sight and without warning and maybe condeming the entire crew to death in one form or another. Remember that in the Pacific, US submarines were doing the same thing to Japanese ships.

Overall I found this movie to be a realistic portrayal of life at sea in the US and German navies in the middle of World War II. I highly recommend it.

The Enemy Below Overview

It's Mitchum vs. Jurgens as the commanders of an American destroyer and a German U-boat play a deadly game of cat and mouse.

The Enemy Below Specifications

In The Enemy Below Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgens are respectively captains of a U.S. destroyer and a German U-boat whose vessels come into conflict in the South Atlantic. Both are good men with a job to do, the script noting Jurgens' distaste for Hitler and the Nazis and engaging our sympathy with the German sailors almost as much as the Americans. Made at the height of the cold war of the 1950s, the film delivers a liberal message of co-operation wrapped inside some spectacular action scenes and a story which builds to a tense and exciting, moving finale. --Gary S. Dalkin

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*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Aug 25, 2010 01:20:05