The Enemy Below

The Enemy Below
Movie Poster
Directed by	Dick Powell
Screenplay by	Wendell Mayes
Based on	The Enemy Below 1956 novel by Denys Rayner
Produced by	Dick Powell
Starring	Robert Mitchum Curt Jurgens
Cinematography	Harold Rosson
Edited by	Stuart Gilmore
Music by	Leigh Harline
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	December 25, 1957 (1957-12-25) (New York City)
Running time	98 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1,910,000[1]

The Enemy Below is a 1957 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. The film was based on the 1956 novel by Denys Rayner, a British naval officer involved in anti-submarine warfare throughout the Battle of the Atlantic.

Plot[]

The American Buckley-class destroyer escort USS Haynes detects and attacks a German U-boat 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, even 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. However, as the battle begins, 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 fatally wounded and 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 three-inch (76 mm) 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 orders executive officer Lieutenant Ware to ram 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. It is clear that Schwaffer is dying, but von Stolberg refuses to leave his friend behind. 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 consigns Schwaffer's remains to the deep in a traditional ceremony as the American crew respectfully watches.

Changes from the book[]

The screenplay differs substantially from the original book. In the book, 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 crew are his prisoners. The film also vaguely alludes to the "enemy" being evil (or the devil), not specifically the Nazis ("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.

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
• Ralph Manza as Lieutenant Bonelli (uncredited)
• Doug McClure as Ensign Merry (uncredited)
• Darryl F. Zanuck as Chief (uncredited)

Jürgens was imprisoned in 1944 by order of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. He was released when World War II ended.^[2] Bikel was a Jew who was born in Vienna, Austria and taken as a child to America in 1937.^[3]

Production[]

The destroyer escort USS Haynes (DE-181) was represented by the USS Whitehurst, filmed in the Pacific Ocean near Oahu, Hawaii. Many of Whitehurst's crewmen acted in the film; the phone talkers, the gun and depth charge crews, the sailor fishing and all of the men seen abandoning ship were real Whitehurst crewmen. The ship's commanding officer Lieutenant Commander Walter Smith played the engineering officer. He is the man seen reading comics (Little Orphan Annie) during the lull before the action. In the same scene, an enlisted man can be seen reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The Whitehurst was sunk as a target in 1971.

The lead ship of the destroyer escort class portrayed in The Enemy Below, USS Buckley, rammed a U-boat in combat and sank it on 6 May 1944, capturing many of the German crew. The actual DE-181 was a Cannon-class destroyer escort, USS Straub (DE-181). USS Buckley was scrapped in 1969 and USS Straub was scrapped in 1974.

Music[]

The tune sung by the U-boat crew on the ocean floor between depth-charge attacks is from an 18th-century march called "Der Dessauer Marsch," known by the first line of lyrics as "So leben wir" ("That's how we live"). The burial hymn in the final scene is "Ich hatt' einen Kameraden."

Awards[]

For the audio effects, Walter Rossi received the 1958 Academy Award for Best Special Effects.^[4]

The film was also awarded as the best sound-edited feature of 1957 by the Motion Picture Sound Editors.^[5]

In popular culture[]

• The 1966 Star Trek episode "Balance of Terror" is closely based on the film, with the USS Enterprise cast as the destroyer and the Romulan vessel, using a cloaking device, as the U-boat.^[6]
• The Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea episode "Killers of the Deep" reused substantial amounts of footage from the film. David Hedison (then Al Hedison), who played Lieutenant Ware, the executive officer of the Haynes, also played Commander Lee Crane on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
• In the 1995 film Crimson Tide, two USS Alabama officers debate about the cast of The Enemy Below.^[7]

See also[]

• List of American films of 1957

References[]

• Rayner, D.A., The Enemy Below, London: Collins 1956

External links[]

• The Enemy Below at IMDb
• The Enemy Below at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Enemy Below at AllMovie
• The Enemy Below at the TCM Movie Database
• The Enemy Below at the American Film Institute Catalog