Alfa Tau!

Directed by Francesco De Robertis, the 1942 "Alfa Tau" is the third in a trilogy of "submarine films" made during the war and which had included "Uomini sul fondo" and "La nave bianca." The movie was produced under the auspices of the Italian Naval Film Ministry. De Robertis had had a hand in all three, either as director or in the case of "La nave bianca" as collaborator in a film directed by Roberto Rossellini.

Like the other two, much of the cast consists of Italian submarine personnel themselves. Unlike the other two, this movie doesn't really go "on board" until about an hour into the story, the start of the film being devoted to the shore lives of various characters on leave before their next mission, especially the commander. We also have the background of an Italy in war and under allied bombardment.

The "highlight" of the film occurs near the end when the Italian submarine Enrico Toti sinks a British sub. For what it is, a paean to the daily dedication and bravery of Italian fighting men, it is a well-made docu-drama made to inspire and reassure the Italian populace that all was under control. It was soft propaganda, in other words. At one point we see a sign in the background that reads "Sono fiero di voi." It means "I am proud of you" and represents Mussolini's encouragement to the fighting forces of Fascist Italy.

The title "Alfa Tau" refers to a star in the galaxy, also known as "Aldebaran" and that serves as a symbol of the Navy. "Aldebaran" was also the name of a 1935 Italian film by Alessandro Blasetti that dealt with Navy life.

Produced in the middle of the Second World War, the film completes an informal trilogy of naval propaganda cinema initiated with Men on the Sea Floor (Uomini sul fondo, 1941) and The White Ship (La nave bianca, 1941). These three films-each exploring distinct aspects of the Italian Navy's operations-were created not only as tools of ideological persuasion but also as cinematic experiments within the constraints and opportunities of wartime production. While all three share a focus on the submarine or naval environment, they differ markedly in tone, form, and technical execution. The first introduced the undersea setting with a stark, semi-documentary style; the second expanded the scope toward allegorical montage and medical-humanitarian framing; and the third represents the most technically assured and formally ambitious of the three.

Unlike the earlier entries, the film assumes a broader structural and spatial configuration. Whereas Men on the Sea Floor remained almost entirely confined within the submarine, emphasizing mechanical discipline and crew dynamics under pressure, and The White Ship alternated naval imagery with poetic-symbolic motifs and hospital ship vignettes, this third installment constructs a hybrid form: partly procedural submarine drama, partly land-based wartime narrative. It is this duality that shapes much of its rhythm and tone.

Significantly, the protagonist of the film was not just an actor but a real submarine commander: Corvette Captain Bruno Zelik, who tragically died shortly after filming on August 10, 1942, while commanding the submarine Scirè. The Scirè, emblematic of Italy's innovative but perilous undersea operations, was renowned for deploying manned torpedoes (Siluri a Lenta Corsa, SLC), a form of sabotage warfare that blended technical ingenuity with extraordinary personal risk. This historical connection lends the film a layer of authenticity rarely seen in propaganda cinema, anchoring its representation of naval life in lived experience and personal sacrifice.

From a cinematographic perspective, the submarine interiors are rendered with more control and fluency than in the previous two films. The camera moves with greater confidence through narrow compartments, often tracking parallel to the action or isolating faces within tight framings that emphasize spatial limitation. The lighting is sharp, practical, designed less for expression than for functional clarity-an aesthetic decision that reflects the controlled, impersonal logic of naval operation. In contrast, the sequences set on land are visually more open, slower in tempo, and more conventionally shot. These scenes, though technically competent, lack the compressed visual tension of the submarine sections and serve more as narrative bridges than emotional anchors.

Sound design, by comparison with the earlier entries, shows a clear evolution. Mechanical sounds dominate, and silence is weaponized in moments of suspense-particularly during submerged stealth operations. Unlike the more voiceover-dependent approach in The White Ship, the soundscape here is mostly diegetic, grounded in realism and free from excessive musical commentary. This gives the submarine scenes a particular gravity and tension that is occasionally diluted by the interludes on land.

The narrative structure alternates between operational sequences at sea and administrative or domestic episodes on land. While this broader frame allows for thematic expansion-it links the submarine to larger wartime networks-it inevitably fragments the psychological intensity that is a hallmark of the subgenre. Films such as Crash Dive (1943) or later The Enemy Below (1957) maintain a tighter spatial unity to sustain dramatic pressure. Here, by contrast, the dual setting flattens the tension intermittently. However, this is offset by a strong editorial rhythm: transitions between sea and land are managed with fluidity, aided by continuity in visual motifs and sound bridges.

Performances, as in the two previous films, remain understated and ideologically coherent. The acting style reflects collective identity over individual psychology. There are no dramatic soliloquies or emotional digressions; instead, the focus is on calm competence, tight vocal delivery, and physical discipline. This consistency reinforces the depiction of the crew as an efficient, self-contained organism, a portrayal that was central to wartime naval propaganda across Axis and Allied cinemas alike. On land, the performances relax slightly, allowing for more tonal variation and subtle humanization of secondary figures, but always within the controlled emotional register required by the film's thematic thrust.

Visually, the film continues the tradition of integrating documentary-style realism with dramatic reconstruction-a technique pioneered in Men on the Sea Floor and stylized in The White Ship. In this third entry, that hybridization is more fluid and less declarative. There's an effort to unify the disparate tones-technical procedure, personal sacrifice, national myth-through consistent visual language: modest compositions, repetition of spatial motifs, and a rhythmic editorial design that avoids sentimentality.

Though it lacks the psychological complexity or production scale of later submarine films such as Das Boot (1981), this film predates them with a formal clarity shaped by the urgency of its historical moment. Its miniature effects, underwater simulations, and set-bound realism achieve moments of real visual tension despite obvious material limitations. Unlike the more theatrical stylizations in We Dive at Dawn (1943) or Destination Tokyo (1943), the special effects here serve narrative plausibility over spectacle.

Beyond its formal attributes, the film's postwar trajectory offers a revealing lens into the politics of memory and censorship.

This censorship was largely driven by political concerns: to protect the interests of the new Allied-aligned government and avoid promoting nationalist or militaristic sentiments that could conflict with postwar realities. Archival records later surfaced through Giulio Andreotti, Undersecretary for Entertainment at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (1947-1953), showing that despite its technical and artistic merits, the film was repeatedly banned from circulation in Italy. Initially cleared by the Allied Psychological War Branch, Italian authorities nonetheless upheld the ban in 1945 and 1946, citing the film's political sensitivity and the need to avoid conflict with Allied interests in the fragile postwar climate.

Even when the film was eventually approved for export in 1947, this was conditional on extensive revisions: fascist salutes, insignias, royalist slogans, and the Savoy coat of arms were all required to be removed. Scalera Film complied, but ironically, the only surviving uncensored version today comes from a print sent to Germany in 1943 for dubbing. Abandoned after Italy's alliance shift that September, it remained in storage in Munich until the fall of the Reich, thus escaping both Italian and Allied censorship.

This convoluted journey from wartime propaganda to contested memory underscores the film's dual identity: a technically sophisticated work of naval cinema and a cultural artifact caught in the shifting tides of 20th-century history.