I saw "Das Boot" for the first time at a midnight showing, in German with English subtitles. I was with my father, who was a US diesel submarine officer. I was worried that I would fall asleep because of the late start time. Just the opposite, I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. Afterwards, my father told me just how accurate the movie was, from food stored in every possible space, to all hands running to the forward compartments during crash dives. One of my best memories of my father from my teen years.
Most modern crews wont understand it, because this was mostly mechanical and you needed lots of people to run it and in combination with the really tight construction it is very cramped.
I saw "Das Boot" in cinema 1981 in Germany together with my father. It is a realistic war film and I like its music very much. Many years later I read the book, written by Lothar Günther Buchheim who was a lieutenant on a german submarine. My father met him once. But at those time Buchheim was an old and sick man. By the way: the young lieutenant (the "guest lieutenant Werner" played Buchheim). He was played by Herbert Grönemeyer. Later he became a famous singer and band leader who is very popular in my country. Greetings from Germany.
This movie shows: There is no heroes, no honor, no good in war. and no sense or victory. War is death, sorrow, violence and loss of humanity. Never forget abou that.A masterpiece.
It says something about the movie that it almost unfailingly manages to captivate the viewers and make them feel with the crew. It gives me hope that a young person can watch a foreign language, 3½ hrs long movie in an era where many lack the patience to watch anything longer than a TikTok video. I remember watching it in the cinema in early 1982, just before my 17th birthday. I had read the novel, so I was prepared for the long stretches of the boredom experienced by the crew. Still, the shocking ending left me in a mood, and when I exited the cinema, it was dark, cold and foggy - it was as if I hadn't left the movie. The memory is still vivid 42 years later.
All you need is to look at this clueless blondie - she is same generation and she cant get the grip at all... Even worse, she has no idea wtf is going on in the movie, her comments are insanely stupid.
Yeah, the only way to fully "see" and experience this film. Watching on a big TV in a dark room with a good surround system can come close, or even headphones, but I totally agree with you.
I remember seeing it back in the 80s in the cinema and it was really good. I would love to see it remixed in Atmos or similar with overhead speakers. Just hearing the screws going over the top of the sub....
Imagine watching the original six part TV series of "Das Boot", almost six hours long! The movie is only a short version of this masterpiece! The series contains a lot more of waiting, waiting and more waiting and bordedom by the men in that claustrophobic U-Boot! This was painful, nerve wrecking to watch, very very intense.
Jurgen Prochnow telegraphs such empathy and sensitivity in his roles-He was the original Duke Leto in Dune, and the emotions he could communicate with a shift of the eye, was greater than some actors could express with a page of dialogue
This is the best submarine movie ever made! It’s amazing how you forget that these were the “bad guys” the further you go in the movie. I’m a retired U.S. Navy submarine sailor and this is such an awesome movie! Remember how Thomsen looked when he came to the bar at the beginning. How red his eyes were and then the CO of this boat’s eyes were just as red when the were trapped on the bottom. So glad you reacted to this for a “best movie ever”! If you want some lighthearted submarine fun, please watch “Operation Petticoat” with Cary Grant and Tony Curtis or “Down Periscope” with Kelsey Grammer. You’ll love them, I promise!
Ich denke gleich mit @putik72. Their bosses were bad guys, and these were guys who were forced into great discomfort and danger. And Dawn did quite well with the German pronunciation of Boot, slightly different from English boat.
From my veteran friends, the levels of drunken revelry haven't changed much... although the MPs are more likely to get you for using a firearm in a club like that.
The scene with the freighter on fire and they didn’t rescue any of the crew came from an incident where German submarines rescues British sailors and British aircraft attacked the submarines. After this, it was a standing order to rescue no sailors. Their luck was with the sea.
That was the Laconia, and it was filled with German and Italian POWs. After it was sunk, the U-boat surfaced, started rescuing survivors, and sent messages in the clear that they (including some other U-boats) were conducting a rescue. A U.S. B-24 found them, and it and a USN task force then attacked the submarines, resulting in the deaths of many of the Laconia survivors.
Well those Type VII U-Boats barely had enough space for their own crews, much less rescuing a handful of enemy sailors. Maybe at the end of the voyage when they were destined to return to port such an act could be possible, but not during a patrol.
The masks worn by the sleeping sailors are NOT oxygen masks, this is a mistake in the subtitle translation. The original refers to “Kalipatronen”. Various explanations can be found on the internet under terms such as escape breathing apparatus, but in short: The exhaled air is filtered through soda lime (often calcium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide) and the CO2 contained in the air is bound / converted by a chemical reaction. The masks therefore serve to slow down the accumulation of CO2 in the air, as an excessively high CO2 content leads to respiratory distress and at some point becomes life-threatening. I have already seen some other reactions to this movie where viewers have asked questions at this point. For good reason, after all, allocating the little remaining oxygen to sleeping or non-working people makes no sense.
Excatly. The "escape breathing apparatus", Tauchretter is not like a scuba diver's oxygen mask. It's a crude once only apparatus, built for one special last ditch effort to save as many crew as possible. Commander opens the hatches to sink the boat, once hull if filled with water, crew activates their apparatuss and leaves the boat. Trick only works for a very limited time. As said in the movie, maximum depth is like 40 meters only.So if you're going down in any other place than the Baltic Sea ... goodbye. Even if you have enough air, the pressure's gonna squash you.
Legend has it that at the first screening of the movie in the US, when they showed the first title card "40,000 German sailors... 30,000 never returned.", the whole theatre broke out in cheering and applause. After the movie finished they all were humbled, silenced and some even cried over the fact that a movie was able to make them root for the 'enemy'. I think that is testament for how well the movie is made. One of the very best... Buchheim, the author of the novel on which the character of Lt. Werner is based, although having other differences with Petersen, the director, praised the movie for it's accurate depiction of how live was on a german u-boat.
YES! I'm a US Navy veteran whose grandfather served in WWII, yet I was empathizing with the U-boat crew. Plus, the moviemakers did such a wonderful job with the characters that, even 40 years after I served, I can look at characters in "Das Boot", and I can compare them to guys with whom I served. "Das Boot" is truly a MASTERPIECE! There will never be another movie like it.
I'm so happy you felt the exact same way I did about this movie. It really shows that people are the same all over the world. Regardless of politics or religion. The comradery of the crew is what makes you feel like you're in the boat with them. This is an excellent movie, worthy of an eternity of viewing. May it never be lost in time
I'm retired US Coast Guard. This movie triggered my PTSD when I saw it in the theaters. It puts you in the flooding confined space with the U-Boat crew. This movie and The Perfect Storm are the closest thing to what I experienced during rescue-at-sea missions. I am gratified by your reaction to the depictions of the heroism displayed by men in peril in the high seas and their determination to save their boat. The cast of this movie received the same psychological therapy as veterans who survived this sort of trauma would. They were also just as afflicted by the experience.
WOW, I DIDN'T KNOW THAT! Oh, and props from this US Navy veteran; though we may have given you guys shit, I have mad respect for what the USCG does. I mean, WTF else charges out into 40 foot seas on 40 foot boats? Who else goes out to sea when everyone else is either in port or on the way there? The USCG, that's who! One USCG veteran told me (in an exchange in the RU-vid comments) that that was you all's idea of fun... 😁
"Das Boot" is by far one of the greatest war, anti-war movies ever made. The ending was inevitable, no matter how much you wanted the crew to survive. The bottom line of the whole story is War Sucks, for everyone. Sides do not matter, only survival, and in this story, that means almost no one. Loved your reaction Dawn Marie, truth to power, best movie ever.
*_"There’s no such thing as an anti-war film."_* - _François Truffaut_ *_"There’s no such thing as a pro-war film."_* - _Steven Spielberg_ F'ed up is, I agree with 'em both.
Spot on. I've watched the movie multiple times and read a translation of the book. Both are decidedly anti-war, showing the ultimate futility of war for any side. No one wins a war. One side just benefits from the losses more than the other.
@@GeraldH-ln4dv All war is about sex. It has never been about anything else. That's why they keep blabbering on about girls. That was the only reason they joined up.
@@tylerdurden576 Hunt for Red October is Hollywood fiction. Boring and predictable. Das Boot shows you what war is like. What people have to endure. And remember, it was the evil Germans whose lives you feared for in this movie. And everyone had a tear in their eye at the end.
@@Muck006 Which is logical if it's a good, realistic war movie. From a humanitarian perspective, there is no winning side in war. It's cruel for everyone involved on both sides.
Blame the US, France, and the British for World War Two, based on how the Germans were dealt with and blamed for World War One-A war Germany did not start.
I love the Scots. I met great people and had a lot of fun. We understood each other from the very first moment. Linguistically we are closer than with the English, that's true. Greetings from Germany
The actor Martin Semmelrogge, the guy you said "Why are you always smiling?" at 5:20 got just the face that teachers will jump on, to dump all suspicions on; always. That remained with him for his life. He was type-cast into the somewhat seedy or obnoxious characters. He also was indicted in several minor street law violations, such as driving without a license, but also some shoplifting and drug ownership. So yeah, in real life he really was something of a bad boy himself, so typecasting him in this one as a somewhat sleezy, cynical 2nd lieutenant was spot on. Edit 1: 6:05 fraternization of soldiers of any kind with with the enemy, such as engagments, was considered Rassenschande / race shame by the Nazi's and strictly forbidden. But even worse among the French population was the treatment any women had to suffer at the hands of La Resistance if they found out that a woman was in love or even simply had engaged in consensual intercourse for whatever reason. They were often hounded around their home towns, sometimes literally by trained dogs. Other times they were spat at, beaten, etc. After the liberation of France many such women had their heads shaved, often times had a swastika tatooed on their foreheads, or even branded with a swastika on a prominent body part as a sign of being a traitor and collaborator, no matter the circumstances. They often had no recourse but to change their names and move far away, often even emmigrating from France to escape this treatment. This lasted for many years. A very sad chapter of horrible aftereffects of this war. Destroyers were dedicated convoy guards and anti-sub hunter killers. The British had developed the active sonar to help detect and determine the depth of dived subs. But that was a highly sophisticated system, expensive, and not available on all ships (yet) at that time. Basically, once a destroyer noticed you as a sub, you had to submerge as quickly as possible, go as quiet as possible, not even speaking, and praying that they didn't have sonar. Once you start to hear sonar, you had roughly a 30% chance of survival if the destroyer was freshly rearmed. If however they had used a lot of their depth charges before in another engagement the sub's escape chances rose quickly as setting the depth charges to the correct depth was a lot of guesswork without sonar. Even then, while sonar was quick, it wasn't instantaneous, so a sub that was in a steep dive might go below the depth for explosion set on the depth charges. That's what the captain said in the first encounter scene: "Now it will get psychological, my gents." Both sides had to anticipate what the other was doing, guessing at their next actions to enhance their personal success chance. Still, destroyers put the fear of God into submariners as they were very, very quick and agile compared to their prey, the Uboats. A good destroyer could easily reach 30 knots, with the sub crawling along at TOP speed underwater at around 7 knots. However top speed very quickly drained the batteries of the submerged sub as well creating a lot of cavitation noises underwater. So the effective speed of a stealthed sub was closer to 0.5 knots or maybe even slower; or roughly drifting with ocean currents.
You at aprox. 20:00 : "They think they know where WE are." Already sucked in. No matter where you come from, halfway into the movie you identify with this German crew and want them to survive. One of the reasons why this is a masterpiece.
Well done you taking on this classic film. There is a longer tv version of this that runs for 5 hours or more and has more character development which makes the bleak end even more impactful. Glad you noticed the superb music too! I really enjoyed this reaction.
What a great reaction! I´m german, and my Grandpa actually was one of these young boys back in 1941. So this movie always was special. I´ve talked to some friends from the UK and France, how they and the people reacted when the movie was released in 1981. Back then, many Vets were still with us. Mostly any one of them, esp the brits told me, that they went to the theatre, cheering and chatting, and when the movie was over, there was dead silence....This movie made a massive impact on how the Brits had a view on the former "Enemy"....btw, I love your scotish accident;)
As a US Navy veteran whose grandfather served in WWII, the movie had a similar effect on me. I proudly own the director's cut DVD (a MUST if you love this movie!) and have seen "Das Boot" many times. Even so, the ending still gets me; the ending still brings tears to my eyes...
@@markymarknj Thank you! We are all happy that former enemies are now close friends and allies, but we all should remember! as the british tend to say LEST WE FORGET!
@@fenrisulfur842 another reason Das Boot resonated with me is because I could look at characters in the film, and then point to guys I actually served with. On my first ship, we had an officer who was like the Second Officer in the movie; he had the same kind of irreverence about him. On my second ship, we had a guy like Frentzen, and he could really CLEAR a compartment with his farts; when he let one loose, you wished you had a gas mask! Plus, the filmmakers really nailed shipboard life. They captured the boredom, the apathy, the tedium, and the monotony interspersed with moments of terror. On the ship, the guys really talked like that with one another.
Germans, due to them having been the bad guys, cannot make , are not allowed to make patriotic and heroic movies about war. This leads to them making the absolute best anti-war-movies out there. No heroes, no great stories, no fun, just dark, gritty realism..... War is hell for all involved....
yes we are allowed to make those kinds of movies. but if you're making a movie... about ww2... from the german perspective... there aint gonna be a happy end with everyone hugging and jumping ending in a freeze frame mid air... 🤣
@@GamingPiper That's what I am talking about... I didn't mean literally that it is "forbidden". It is more of an unspoken rule that Germans won't be making those "hurrah, war is great and heroic" kind of war movies like the Americans produce them.
@@GamingPiper öhhhhm ... we are the best in being the "bad guys" .... they have no idea how good we are .... in peace ... and doin our jobs in war ... up to them ....
For another German WWII movie, I would recommend Stalingrad from 1993. To me it feels very similar to Das Boot. So even if they were made over a decade apart, they are in my mind a pair of movies showing battle on two different fronts. Based on real events, it's anything but a feel-good-movie. But it's a really good one. I hope it'll make your list.
@@frankogravedigger I don't really see the reference there unless you are referring to the war in Ukraine from Putin's deluded POV, where it's an unprovoked attack by the fascist west on Mother Russia.
Something You get about "Das Boot" when You're native German or well experienced in German language is the variaty of dialects. For example Johann ("das Gespenst") is definitely from Austria, Pilgrim (Tiefensteuerer) speeks a broad Hamburg lower class dialect, Bootsmann Lamprecht is from Hessen, Ario and Schwalle (both Dieselheizer) are from the Ruhr area and from Berlin. Even the officers are not pronouncing clear and the only crew member speaking correctly "Hochdeutsch" is the 1 WO, obviously the only upper class crewman. It's an interesting aspect, showing the variety of the crew members origins all out of Germany and even Austria, , although Germany has coasts only in the north.
It's ages since I watched this movie, but I do remember it's brutal realism and the "happy" ending which in the last moments turn into a disaster. I think it is one of the most realistic war movies ever made with it's unnerving tension and it is truly a master piece. Now, next foreign movie you should do, and that's a black and white one, is The Seventh Seal, best swedish movie ever. And it'll give you a bit of comic relief, he he.
„Is this a horror movie?“ - Yes, and a quite realistic one. „There is no happy end in it“ - Yes again, nobody gains anything from a war and this movie is one of the best to show that in my opinion. Although it's about the "bad Germans", the movie manages to put us in the shoes of these people and make us feel for them, regardless of our nationality. And knowing that something similar is happening right now (Ukraine, Israel and many other places around the world) should make us think about how we can do a little bit ourselves to make the world a better place.
YES! And here's another thing to consider: the soldiers, sailors, and airmen in any war are just doing their jobs; they're trying to survive, stay in one piece, and get home to their families. As the movie showed, military personnel aren't always in favor of their government's policies, either.
YES! I'm a US Navy veteran whose grandfather served in WWII. I also own the director's cut DVD (a MUST for any "Das Boot" fan!) and have seen this movie many times. Even so, the ending still gets me; the ending still brings tears to my eyes.
the Captain's age was 30 and he was the oldest on board. Btw the real Captain of U-96 survived the war and became the Captain of Germany's first and only nuclear powered freighter
24:30 is a great depiction of a battefield condition known as "Shell Shock". Your mind and nervous system get so overloaded from the stress and fear of this near death situation that you are in that your conciousness snaps in half and the only thing that is left of you is a jibbering, shaking mess clinging to objects near you for dear life. It can happen to anyone regardless of your mental or physical fortitute...
About that moment when they didn't rescue the people from the burning torpedoed cargo ship: The German submarines were under orders not to, after something called "Laconia Incident". Which was hell of an incident. A German U-Boat, U-156, had torpedoed a freighter and took the people on her deck and their lifeboats on tow. So many were wounded, the captain decided to cover the U-Boat with a red cross, broadcast his location and intention of saving human lives over achieving war goals and started to tow the survivors to safety, on surface. The U-Boat, clearly marked with Red Cross and towing lifeboats, was spotted by an American B-24 Liberator bomber. The bomber radio'ed for instructions and was told by US Air Force command to attack the U-Boat. They did, attacking with bombs and machine guns, killing multiple people on the U-Boat's deck. The captain tried in vain to signal that his intention was only to get these people to safety, but he was forced to crash dive in order to prevent the submarine from getting destroyed. These actions completely changed the German Navy's attitude towards saving Allied seamen, marine, navy, or otherwise, leading to this scene in the movie and multiple like in real life. The B-24 Liberator crew were never prosecuted for war crimes and received medals for bravery.
Are those full or flank speeds for a Type VIIC U-Boat? I would have expected more like 20kts surfaced and 10kts submerges as maximum (flank) speeds since US and Japanese subs were in those speed ranges and the VIIC was certainly comparable in capability to its contemporaries, but as you correctly pointed out you could not maintain flank speed underwater for even 30 minutes before power dropped you down a few kts and if you continued at high speed your batteries would be done in just a couple of hours with full speed being only marginally slower yet using around 50% less power than flank.
Germany wasnt really allowed to have a big navy, so they didnt have any "experienced submariners" either and when the Nazis decided to start arming and building these submarines, they obviously got new / young crews.
You’re experiencing what we wartime veterans have always felt - the respect and admiration of fellow warriors, even if they’re on the side of the enemy. Enemy or not, opposing forces fight on behalf of their homeland, as any nation’s patriot would do. It’s a human thing.
Sorry, but that's mealymouthed nonsense at best and utterly inaccurate at worst. The German military wasn't defending their homeland they were conquering the homelands of others. This is why the Allied nations were fighting against the Germans.
@@Anon54387 There’s a lot you do not understand about the nature of war. You’re making the mistake of assuming everyone in the German military subscribed to the Nazi ideology. Most did not but followed orders because that is what soldiers do. The ones who wanted to expand German territory was the Schutzstaffel and Hitler’s government.
@@Anon54387Most of regular German soldiers were defending their country. Just regular men. At the same time soviets backed up by the US and UK, were attacking Poland from the east. Also Finland. Allied were pro soviet and pro communism it was totally OK for the UK and US to divide Europe in half with the soviets for the next 50 years. 50 years of oppression, murder, forced communism. That was just fine by the "allied". If you haven't experienced it and the aftermath, please be quiet and read a book. "We beat the wrong enemy." -Patton.
25:53 As you saw there's no space on a submarine and when a German submarine mounted a rescue mission in I think it was the Atlantic, announced it on open channels asking for assistance the Americans send naval bombers to sink the submarine instead of assisting them. After that an order was given that no German submarine was to rescue any enemy crew under any circumstances because it was too dangerous.
If you expected a happy ending, read again the text shown at the beginning. A happy ending for u-boat men was an unlikely event. And sinking a boat while coming into port was a prime opportunity - the boat couldn't dive to escape an air attack, and now the canal/lock is blocked until they can remove the wreckage.
The drama "Das Boot" brings the war so close that it literally takes the viewer's breath away. "Das Boot" tells of a steel coffin, of fear of death, of people who "went through terrible things in the name of a criminal ideology" (W. Petersen). The director earned six Oscar nominations for his film, and all the leading actors became stars. Truly a (deeply shocking) masterpiece.
This was based on a best-selling novel, which I read when it came out in English translation in 1977. Excellent book telling it how it really was, and raunchier and harder hitting than the movie could be. Still have my paperback copy!
Mine is so well-read that it's falling apart :P The translator, J. Maxwell Brownjohn did a marvellous job. I also have a copy of the U.S. translation, and it's missing a whole section where Buchheim describes the colour of the sky.
They really filmed this in a U-Boot set, no retractable walls, just the actors and a camera guy and Wolfgang Petersen somewhere directing. It is one of the best if not the best German movie.
I've toured the original set at Bavaria studios in Munich - it's incredibly cramped, just like you see in the movie - and I can't imagine how anyone could ever have directed such a project. There's only room for a cameraman and nothing more. Pure genius.
@@FHB71 Wow, I visited there too way back in my student days. I find the idea, not to mention the reality, of submarines horrifying. It's hard to imagine that all those young men were volunteers (it's pretty hard to FORCE someone to live and die like that against their will and still get good results from them).
A U-Boat max speed was 18 knots on the surface but only 7.6 knots submerged. Time underwater is trickier. At top speed they could operate only 2 hours but, at a crawl, they could stay under for about a day with no activity. Surface ships, except for clunky old freighters, could beat them if the sub was submerged. Warships were definitely quicker.
Yup, subs have changed a great deal since then (as has every other thing). If you ever see an old sub in a museum, it is shocking how they fought wars in these small rickety things. Braving odds & casualty rates that today nobody would ever accept.
Yepp, but underwater the sub was a lot more stable. Imagine going to sea in a 70 meters long, narrow ship that is prone to rolling, pitching, and turning wildly in even fairly moderate waves. Everyone in the boat couldn't see what was coming, if it was another swell or dip, they just had to feel it in the soles of their feet. Throw in horrible hygiene (water was far too precious to waste on showers or shaving), molding food, sweat, bad breath, burnt oil and diesel... you get the idea. Sea sickness was not affordable, but it obviously happened. But going subsurface meant that the type VII sub had to rely on its batteries as they didn't have the snorkels yet to supply the diesel engine with air for combustion, or to vent the sub. That was a very late war invention and didn't make any effective changes to the outcome of the war anyways. So speed was best on the surface but it obviously bore the risk of being detected far easier. The diesel engine was also needed to recharge the batteries. It was a weighing of pros and cons.
@@wyldhowl2821 North Korea has a surprising number of submarines, BUT they are mostly very tiny ones that wont be too effective (against warships that pay attention).
"War is cruelty. There’s no use trying to reform it, the crueler it is the sooner it will be over." "I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.” US Army General William Sherman, around 1880
... and today the USA does everything to keep the cruelty of war to "the other side" with - stealth bombers - drones - letting other countries fight for them which I would call EVIL. War NEEDS to be cruel to BOTH SIDES ... so people dont wage it lightly.
I LOVE this movie. One of the very best. One of these days I have to finally watch my Blu Rays of the miniseries cut. So pleased you're watching in German too. It adds something to the authenticity. I think the coolest bit of trivia for this movie is that Steven Spielberg was filming for Raiders of the Lost Ark at the La Rochelle submarine docks at about the same time as Wolfgang Petersen for Das Boot and basically asked him if he could borrow his prop U-Boat to film a few scenes for Raiders. EDIT: You asked how the water can get out, they pump it out using high pressure air or bilge pumps depending on the situation to force it out at higher pressure than the water outside. Then the valves are just non-return valves that slam shut when water is trying to flow the other way. Also, the Kriegsmarine weren't overly enamoured with Hitler's leadership by this part of the war I don't think. There's some parts of the movie where they can't really disguise their distaste.
The "winners" are the modern day generals and presidents who send men to die without ever being in danger. They dont see the dead and the brutality, at most they see a bunch of coffins.
Most non-Germans here may not know that Herbert Groenemeyer (Leutnant Werner) is one of Germany's most successful pop singers, selling out stadiums to this day.
Not anymore since he’s onboard with the crappy left wing government in Germany that ignores the dangers of Islam and allows more illegal Islamic migrants in. Herbert doesn’t even live in Germany - he lives in a posh neighborhood in London.
Hello! Thank you very much reacting to this awesome Movie!!!! The German word 'Boot' sounds exactly the same like the English word 'Boat' So you pronounced it absolutely correct! Btw....I love your 🏴 Accent!
Yes, BUT they only had a rather limited number of depth charges ... and once they used them the submarine was "safe" again. That's why they count them in one of the scenes.
Everyone had crabs because they had to hot-bunk. When you're on shift, the guy off shift sleeps. Then when your shift is over and his starts, you jump in his bed. So if one guy has crabs, the crabs spread to the sheets, then to the next guy and so on. As well as lack of personal space for storing clothes. When it's transmitted like that, they can get anywhere with enough coarse hair. Beards and eyebrows included
A fun bit of movie trivia - because they were filming at the same time, the submarine is the same one that was in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The interior of the sub base was also used as the island Nazi base they travel to in Raiders.
What you have to remember is that not every soldier avidly followed their 'great' leader's nationalist ideolgy. In fact some knew he was messing EVERYTHING up. You can tell by the captains thoughts he was sharing with his officers. In the case of the U-boat crew, they knew they were the garbage collectors, just doing their job. The movie conveys the human aspect of 'the other side' very well, and in particular, life on a U-boat. It genuinely was this brutal, and that was for the ones that survived it. Still the very best war movie in my opinion.
By this time in the war, the Allied Nations had gotten to be very good at sinking Japanese and German submarines and because of this there were only a dozen scattered around the Atlantic whereas before there were a peak of 116 operating in May 1943 which was a bleak prospect for the Allied Nations.
This movie takes place in late 1941 into 1942, when there were between 40 and 120 U boats on patrol in the Atlantic, and the numbers were still rising to a peak of about 160 in the Spring of 1943.
Events like this in the past just shows there were heros on both side of this war, and happy endings were not the common outcome. My father went to this war, and he loved life more than ever after it, and I got spoiled to bits by him, my mother and sister also. I always loved this movie, because at the end of the day you just come out of it thinking, thank God we aren't expected to go down this life destroying path, where there really are no winners... Thanks for the review.
I like to wait for one of those truly miserable, dreich, stormy winter days and watch the long version. I originally saw it on the BBC as a series back in the 80's & still have the near 7 hour VHS version, just nothing to watch it on.😁
And yes, the movie is supposed to end this way, as it's a somewhat autobiographic retelling of the experiences of the narrator (the role of Lt. Werner) during his service on several submarines during WW2. None of the seamen are heroes, even though all of them have a human side. Keep in mind that this boat crew sunk several ships and killed over 1000 people in the process.
Ships didnt have that huge crews ... oh and if you want to play the "numbers game" ... those seamen were bringing supplies to kill even more people in Germany. I suggest you stop that "blame game" nonsense and look at the human tragedy.
@@Muck006 Sooo... reading is not your forte, it seems. Nowhere I stated that those people killed were on one ship. They sunk several ships, even though only one is shown in the film. I stand by my statement: No heroes. And the only 'human tragedy' are people defending the aggressor.
The author of the novel, Lothar G Buchheim, was a reporter on a submarine, like Lieutenant Werner, and has incorporated his experiences and those of other reporters into the novel.
11:49 Unfortunately that's not how it works. Yes, it can be a bit more difficult for them to get you on sonar if you're deep but it's also a lot easier for them to destroy you. Remember what he said earlier about the water pressure? Now imagine you're close to the breaking point of the and a depth charge goes off anywhere close to your boat. The shock together together with the water pressure would smush it together like a Cola can you just stepped on...
Great reaction Dawn (one of your best) 'The Cruel Sea' should be your next reaction Dawn, see the Battle of the Atlantic from the other side too. A quote from the book "The men are the heroes; the heroines the ships. The only villain is the sea, the cruel sea that man has made more cruel".
Because they all have the same people watching them who make the requests/suggestions. I.E. The same people request multiple channels watch the same movie.
everything you feel is the message of this Film. We are all Humans, some you like, some don't but why do we make war against each other - it's senseless
The last scene (I mean the whole attack on the submarine harbor) was the big moment for charley bum bum, the explosive tech. And if you ever happen to visit Munich you could take a look at the replica of U-96 that was used for this film, because they build a 55m long tube with all the fittings of a real submarine. Simply go to Munich give a cab driver the order drive me to the 'Bavaria Filmstadt München' and buy a ticket for 15,00 €.
25:57 They weren't allowed to rescue survivors anymore, since the last time it happened IRL, the German U-Boat and the rescued crew/passengers of the sunk ship were *knowingly* bombed by the US planes, for reference see "The Laconia Incident".
The Engine's on those WW2 boats are also the fresh air pumps, as soon as they start they take air from inside the boat and pump it through the engines and out so you quickly ventilate the boat that way fresh air is sucked in through the hatches.
I first saw Das Boot at a theater in 1982. I had already read the book several times so I knew what to expect. My date with me saw the story for the first time. She left the theater shell-shocked! She understood the story -- it had enough explanation in the movie for someone who knew nothing about how submarine warfare works.
Great movie choice Dawn, but could I please ask, what has happened with Deadwood? You were so in to the show and it was one of my all time favorite shows. So many folks on the channel loved your reactions to it! Please let us know what is happening on that side. Thanks!
You made a comment about how they ate. This was part of their culture. Hitler stated that the uboat crews were the cream, the finest etc. Heavily contrasting the actual conditions onboard. Uboats would put to sea with fine china on each voyage even though tin ones would probably serve them better. The picture painted of the uboat service was that of a recruitment poster. And the officers were expected to behave as such. I really like this ending. The next watch should be a movie about the other side and even with a flight crew. Then you hope they pull through and drop their bombs on target..... until you realize that their targets are men like these... war is just terrible.
Wikipedia says "A landfill site, also known as a TIP, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, trash dump, or dumping ground". I have heard tip in the context of "I'll take that to the tip"
A very gripping and well written movie. We saw it years ago when it came out in the theater. Even with English subtitles, it is one of the best war movies we saw.
38:57 I don't think you understood that this submarine was seriously damaged at this point. It was actually ready for the scrapyard or a long stay in a shipyard. Without the immense skills of the L.I and his boys, the boat would have become a so-called "the boat will become a bronze grave". They didn't even know if the diesels could even be made to run again. They couldn't test them because the diesel is an internal combustion engine that absolutely requires oxygen, which was extremely scarce anyway. Furthermore, due to the water that had entered, the submarine was still far too heavy to be able to surface. The water first had to be transported out of the submarine. At this point the required pump was not yet ready for use. There is no "happy ending" with dreamy eyes and a kiss in war. A "happy ending" only exists in Hollywood, not in reality. War means death and destruction. A "happy ending" would have destroyed everything the film had told up to that point.
