Das Boot (1981)

[Elster88]

Haven't seen this yet, but it is first on my list of rentals.

I understand the re-release in 1997 included an additional hour. Edit: 65 minutes, to be exact.

Please specify when rating.

[Guest sharpie]

Haven't seen it. I was surprised, however, to read that it was the highest-grossing foreign film in the US until, I believe, "Life Is Beautiful" beat it out.

[Edgy MD]

More likely the highest grossing foreign language film.

I imagine Like Water for Chocolate topped it first, though.

[Guest sharpie]

Yes, that is what I meant of course. Maybe it was Like Water For Chocolate that beat it, but I'm pretty sure Life Is Beautiful is the current champeen.

[Vic Sage]

terrific movie.
submarine movies are usually hard to screw up because of the inherent tension in the scenario... men in confined space, deep below the sea, under pressure (both actual and metaphorical).

[Vic Sage]

Top 10 submarine war movies to see:

BEDFORD INCIDENT
DAS BOOT
CRIMSON TIDE
DESTINATION TOKYO
ENEMY BELOW
GRAY LADY DOWN
HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER
ICE STATION ZEBRA
RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP
TORPEDO RUN

fantasy/sf sub movies:
20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA
VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA
FANTASTIC VOYAGE
THE ABYSS
YELLOW SUBMARINE

comedy sub movies:
HELLO DOWN THERE
OPERATION PETTICOAT
DOWN PERISCOPE

[Elster88]

I was thinking of making a seperate thread about submarine movies.

[Edgy MD]

Top of my head:

Mr. Roberts
Das Boot
Periscope Up/Down/Whatever
Yellow Submarine
Operation Petticoat
That Soviet Sub Movie with Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson
Crimson Tide
That McConaghy/BonJovi movie.
Abyss
20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea
Star Wars: Visting the Gunduns

[Willets Point]

I saw the A&E Biography of Tony Curtis and the thing that sticks with me is how he really wanted to make "a service comedy with Cary Grant" (and when he said this he mimed Cary Grant looking in a periscope). Curtis was at the height as an A-list actor and was able to get that movie made and thus "Operation Petticoat."

[Elster88]

K-19 was Ford/Neeson. Pretty darn good, I thought.

U-571 was the McConaHEY one, I think.

[RealityChuck]

Top 10 submarine war movies to see: BEDFORD INCIDENT DAS BOOT

Nice choice, but "The Bedford Incident" was set on a destroyer, not a sub (Though there was a Russian sub in it).

Das Boot is probably the best submarine movie out there (well, technically, it was a TV miniseries cut down to feature length). It was pretty daring for showing everything from the German point of view, and some of the scenes are the perfect definition of "suspense."

[Edgy MD]

Well, it was a German production. I guess the surprise is that it got a chance among British and American distributor's and audiences.

[Elster88]

I liked it. Four U-boats.

The only critic I read is Roger Ebert (his archives is a great site). He made an interesting point. A scene, in which the survivors on the American boat are swimming for the sub, shows the U-boat captain sadly (actually, angrily, that the Americans did not rescue these men in the past few hours since the boat was attacked) ordering the boat to be backed away. Perfectly legitimate, IMO. The U-boat is not the type of ship that should be rescuing enemy survivors. Ebert wonders if an American film would have shown an American crew doing the same, or would show some heroic (read: bullshit) rescue. He thinks the latter.

[Guest cooby]

I was going to start a thread on this and happily discovered that one already exists. I see I also already voted on it, probably one of the fives.


We watched this one night over the weekend, I believe Saturday, on AMC and they will probably repeat it so if anybody has missed it or would like to see it again, please take the opportunity. It's very very long, but again please, watch it to the end.

This movie gets me every time.

[Guest cooby]

I checked and this is on AMC again next week if any one wants to see it