Simply A Masterpiece

Fantastic!

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

"We Dive at Dawn" is a good, war-time action movie: heroic but no so jingoistic to be unpalatable to modern audiences. The fictional Royal Navy submarine 'Sea Tiger' goes to sea after the 'Brandenburg', a fictional German battleship. The first third of the movie, which is mostly 'home-front' scenes following the crew as they go on leave then find their leave cancelled is a bit slow, but the movie picks up when the 'Sea Tiger' leaves on the hunt. When the pray is sighted, the movie slides into the classic 'cat and mouse' game between the submarine and the battleship and its escorting destroyers. The stalking of the 'Brandenburg' is very well done as are the scenes of misleading and evading the destroyers. After the skirmish and short on fuel, the submarine heads for a Danish port to steal some diesel, a 'commando' segment that I found much less interesting than the scenes at sea. Likely due to its mid-war filming, the movies suffers a bit in realism (e.g. the German soldiers seem to be using British machine guns). I was intrigued to find out that there really were radio-equipped 'rescue floats' that had been dropped into the channel by the Germans for the use of downed Luftwaffe aircrew. The fact that the Sea Tiger encounters one of these floats that happens to be occupied by three Germans (one of whom knows a key fact about the Brandenburg's sailing) who are then taken prisoner seems a bit of a stretch. Given the cramped conditions of a WW2 submarine, I can't imagine that there would be much room for prisoners but, even at the height of the Battle for the Atlantic and a year after the Blitz, I doubt British audiences would have accepted the likely outcome of such an encounter in real life (i.e. the Germans know too much to be left on the float but taking them prisoner is not feasible, so...). Overall: a worthy entry into the "submarine movie" genre and a good example of British war-time movies.

The main interest here is the period detail. Those who make films today set in the 1940s ought to have a look and listen - then they might not make some of the mistakes of language and tone that are so common. However, we have to face the fact that this film is a cheap flag waver. The first third drags as we go through some unconvincing stories about the home lives of the sailors, mostly done in the "chirpy working class" mode that the British entertainment industry favoured at the time. The main story is far-fetched and the Danish village is made of the cheapest painted cardboard. During the war it was obviously important not to scare the families on the home front too much, with the result that there is little real sense of danger on the sub and hardly any casualties. In contrast, think of "Das Boot" with everyone bathed in sweat, cooped up in claustrophobic conditions, breathing foul air and scared out of their wits. It's not like that here. Despite the food and fuel running out and depth charges going off all around, everyone is pretty much calmness personified. On a positive note, the Germans are real ones and speak correct German, which was good going for a wartime film.

I very much agree with the comment about the verisimilitude of the control room dialogue and action during the torpedo shoot. However, the scenes that really struck me most forcibly as realistic were those in the engine room during the episode where the Baltic A/S net was penetrated. The mechanician operating the electric motor was (in my opinion!) definitely not an actor - he was a matelot doing his regular job, and he was obviously jolly proud of it too. The repetition of these "ahead/astern" scenes suggests that the director was as fascinated as I was. The film is and will remain well worth watching for scenes like these. And for our US friends who find the dialogue difficult - well, I often use the subtitles option when watching modern Hollywood action films, like "Get Shorty". Doesn't stop my enjoyment, and I can then understand about 90% on a second unaided viewing!

***************************MILD SPOILERS AHEAD**************************We Dive at Dawn is an English made movie with John Mills in the lead role. The second time I watched the DVD version was on a big screen TV and I must say the movie is better than I thought the first time I saw it on the samll screen. May be it was the big screen viewing that helped?I still say the first few segments of the movie are muddled, but once the submarine leaves the dock and begins its mission, the movie takes off too! The search for the German battleship named the Brandenburg and the adventures which went along with it were absorbing and the detail shown in the movie are interesting!I'm increasing my rating to 7/10. If you enjoy WW II films, I think you'll find this one interesting once the submarine gets underway. Some of the men on the sub have quite a sense of humor, too!