Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The history of French cinema, for better or worse, is largely tethered to two boad-sweeping movements; the Poetic Realism movement and the Nouvelle Vogue. Both periods expanded the limitations of film technique while constantly calling into question grammar and form. Populated with names like Godard, Varda, Renoir and Carne, these movement most importantly laid the foundation for auteur theory (the notion that a film is a product of the director like a novella to an author).Rene Clement is not a member of either of these movements. Considered too young for the poetic realism and too old for the French New Wave, Clement was dismissed by Francois Truffaut as part of the Cinema du papa (Your dad's cinema); a blanket term for French filmmakers who try to mimic the bloated spectacle of Hollywood. Yet anyone who gives Forbidden Games (1952) or Purple Noon (1960) a chance can clearly see a talented filmmaker with a flair for docudrama and a taste for good-old-fashioned storytelling.Now granted The Damned does not reach the feverish heights of Purple Noon but it nevertheless oozes with the spirit of Americanized suspense while telling a story that's uniquely French. Set during the last months of the Third Reich, a group of Nazis and Nazi sympathizers have planned a daring escape from Europe via U-boat. Things however hit a snag after a close encounter with a Allied ship, forcing the boat to dock and kidnap a French doctor (Vidal). The doctor then bares witness to the escalating fanaticism of the U-boat's crew and occupants as they come to terms with the war ending.Filled with potboiler intrigue, calculating villains and frenetic action, The Damned brings to mind Hitchcock's slim but suspenseful war-period films like Lifeboat (1944) and Foreign Correspondent (1940). Yet unlike those films which played on the uncertainty of a wartime audience, The Damned has a foreboding sense of ennui. The narration provided by Henri Vidal puts you into the mind of the Doctor and his multiple attempts to escape from the clutches of the U-boat's occupants, which include fanatical SS Officer Forster (Dest), Wehrmacht General Von Hauser (Kronefeld), Italian industrialist Garosi (Giachetti) and his wife (Marly). His main motive is concentrated to that of sheer survival. He knows full well that the moment the wife's injuries are cared for, he's a dead man, so he cleverly uses any excuse to stay on as the resident doctor until better options arrive.Yet while the doctor may be absolved in his complicity to the Nazi cause, the film shades in the rest of the characters in sometimes quixotic ways. By virtue of being connected to the virginal Ingrid (Campion), Scandinavian physicist Eriksen (Hector) is absolved of his motivation to sell nuclear secrets to the highest bidder. The majority of the Nazi U-boat crew are seen in a positive and simplistic light; a cadre of men just wanting to go home. Meanwhile Florence Marly's Hilde is savaged by the events of the story, not merely because she's a sympathizer but because she is also the mistress to the General. Paul Bernard plays Couturier a French newspaper editor (and the only representative of Vichy France) who is quietly kept under the rug until his final curtain call. One can't help but think that if Couturier's death wasn't so senseless, Clement was trying to build a story around justifying culpability.Regardless, The Damned is still a brilliantly shot film full of nail-biting suspense and claustrophobic mis en scene. Those who saw Das Boot (1981) or Run Silent, Run Deep (1956) will no doubt see similar visual cues which, I won't go far enough to say were inspired by The Damned but are strongly reminiscent of it. Rene Clement may not be one of the names immediately conjured up when thinking of French filmmakers but with quality films under his belt, he certainly doesn't deserve the Cinema du papa moniker.

Let's face it - If you're a Nazi, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.This 1947, WW2 Drama (as told through the eyes of French film-maker, Rene Clement) was, in spite of its flaws and somewhat dry story-telling, at least worth one viewing.Certainly containing its fair share of Nazi stereotypes, The Damned (aka. Les Maudits) featured a truly despicable villain (former SS officer, Forster) who, before long, I just loved to hate.The Damned's story begins on April 18, 1945 (as WW2 was quickly coming to an end).A small group of wealthy Nazis (along with some tag-along French sympathizers) board a fully-crewed submarine just outside of Oslo, Norway. Their hopes are to, sooner or later, make a clear break all the way to South America. But, of course, a mission of this one's nature (especially with these particular passengers on board) could never, ever be expected to go exactly as planned.As predicted (pressed within the unbelievably cramped and crowded confines of the submarine) it doesn't take long for betrayals, double-crosses and flaring tempers to rise to the occasion.From Norway, to the North Sea, and along the English Channel, this jam-packed "sardine can" makes 2 unscheduled pit-stops on its way towards the Atlantic Ocean. And, as fate would have it, these brief stopovers prove to be the inevitable undoing of this particular mission.P.S. - After all was said and done in The Damned, I kind of wondered whatever happened to the cute, little black & white kitten who was also a passenger on this submarine. I hope that the good doctor was able to save it, 'cause I certainly don't think this putty-tat had any Nazi leanings.

I give this film five stars although I would rather have given it one star, because of the other reviews posted here. I cannot say for sure that this is René Clement's weakest film but it is by far not his best and it is the weakest I can remember to have seen. It contains the typical Nazi stereotypes that were maybe true, I don't know, but nevertheless boring. Had the Nazis all have been such idiots they could hardly have lasted six years in a war against practically the whole world. True, they were first supported by the west to scare off the Bolsheviks but later on they were pretty much alone against the whole world. When it came out maybe there were not that many films about Nazi stereotypes and so it must have seemed better thenö but I review the film from the impact it could have to day and in that lite it is at best vaguely interesting but on no account whatsoever comparable with Les yeux interdit, for example. I just went through the list of Clements films and of the ones I've seen, this is indeed his weakest.

Taking a look at a recent poll held on the IMDb Classic Film board for the best films of 1947,I was sad to discover,that in amongst the 100's of fantastic sounding titles mentioned in the poll,the total number of movies which I had up to then seen from that year was 3!.Feeling disappointed about not finding a single movie from 1947 on my shelf waiting to be watched,I suddenly got a terrific surprise,when a fellow IMDb kindly gave me directions to what sounded like an unforgettable Film Noir set in murky waters,which lead to me deciding to set off on finding movies from 1947 in a submarine.The plot:April 1945:Getting hit at every angle by bombs delivered from Alied forces,a submarine crew containing Nazi's and loyal to the cause Italian and French sympathiser's discover the along with the damage to the sub,one of the most wealthiest and powerful of the sympathiser's (Hilde Garosi) has been badly hurt in the attack.Frustraed at not finding a single doctor in amongst the crew and sympathiser's,General Von Hauser and SS leader Forster decide to take drastic action by diverting their original destination of South America for a small,isolated town in France,in the hope of finding a doctor that they can kidnap.Sending their most trusted crew members undercover to France,the undercover team find Doctor Guilbert hiding in a burnt out building.Taking Guilbert to the sub at gunpoint,Guilbert initially hopes that he is only being taken to the sub as a "one off",and the as soon as he has given Hilde the correct treatment,the undercover team will be ordered to take him back safely to France.Sadly for the Doctor,he soon witnesses his hope get completely destroyed as the crew are ordered to set sail again,which leads to the now kidnapped Guilbert realising that he is going to have to use all of his skills and cunning in order to survive the underwater village of the dammed that he finds himself in.View on the film:For their adaptation of a Victor Alexandrov story,the screenplay by (deep breath!) Jacques Companeez,Henri Jeanson,Jacques Remy and director Rene Clement smartly keeps the scenes set out of the submarine to a minimum,so as to give each moment when one of the characters slip out a small amount of detail about what they got up to out of the submarine,a feeling of water slowing sinking into the vessel.Giving each of the characters different beliefs in the Nazil cause, (from the crew who see it as a job,to the Forster, whose life depends on the very existence of his beloved SS) and also showing a language barrier, (with some of the dialogue that the Hilde's husband says to the Germans smartly not being subtitled so as to show that none of the Germans can understand a word that he is saying) the writers slowly turn the fractured nature of the submarine inhabitants up,which leads to the originally "united" submarine splintering into separate divisions each filled with fears over the unknown plans of the other sub- divisions.Making Guilbert's (played by a brilliantly rugged Henri Vidal) inner monologue a prime feature of the film,the writers show expert timing in choosing the moments that the audience can hear Guilbert's narration,which allows the viewer to "join up" with Guilbert in his information gathering and also the "games" that he unleashes on the unsuspecting crew,in order to stay alive a little longer in this hellish sea merchant.Shooting the movie on what looks to be a real submarine,director Rene Clement and cinematography Henri Alekan use long,rough edged tracking shots to create a chilling Film Noir atmosphere,thanks to the tracking shots allowing Clement and Alekan to show that there is not a single bit of free space inside this tight,claustrophobic environment.Focusing on every damp corner of the sub,Clment and Alekan brilliantly use the closed off setting as a device to allow the murky characters inner secrets to bubble up to the surface,from Hilde's (played by a very pretty Florence Marly) marriage being on the rocks,to Forster (played by a wonderfully wicked Jo Dest) taking control of things,by taking part in some very ahead of their time S&M games with his loyal assistant Willy.Extending the tense Film Noir atmosphere out of the sub and into the small moments that the characters are allowed to taste fresh air,Clement shoots the outdoor scenes in a upwards angle which brilliantly allows for all of the tensions rolling out of the submarine to be fully displayed,with Clement delivering a ruthless final punch as he sends the dammed submarine back to the hell from which it,and its inhabitants came from.