Plongée à l'aube

The submarine used was NOT Varangian! 'It' was in fact two boats, P614 and P615, both built for Turkey by Vickers Armstorng at Barrow-in-Furness but kept hold of by the Royal Navy for the duration of the war. P615 was sunk but P614 was eventually delivered in 1945.

The confusion no doubt arose because someone looked up P61 (as I did) and found Varangian! When in fact, the last digit of both P614 and P615 was in fact just painted out....

There are some extremely realistic moments in the film. These Turkish boats were very similar to the S-class. As no S-class submarines survive, the shots of them (as P61) and of the depot ship "Forth" form part of an interesting record now, as well as an excellent film.

Looking back from the safety of 2005 it is difficult to conceive of the difficulties that must have ensued in making decent films in Britian at the height of WW II. Of course they are going to be patriotic, flag-waving type of affairs but within the constraints of the time there were some fine stories, excellent acting and first rate directing.

We Dive At Dawn is not one of the absolute best of this genre but it is very good. Any film involving John Mills would have a problem being bad. And there is also the marvellous Eric Portman.

Sir John's recent death, happily after a long, long life, brings home the journeyman qualities of so many modern actors. He was equally at home, and equally convincing, as a private soldier, airman or naval rating, or as a senior officer. It is difficult to think that many of today's crop, who seem to speak with their own regional accents both on and off duty, are anything like as versatile, and very few are anywhere near as good.

As to the film, it is a rattling good yarn, with glimpses of the family life and problems of some of the crew. I recently watched it again on afternoon television and was still entertained royally.

I had to smile at an American reviewer having difficulty with English accents. We British have to put up with all sorts of American accents in films all the time.

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!

Whilst I enjoy submarine action films, I wasn't expecting much from one created in the midst of WW2. Nevertheless, this must be one of the best wartime films actually created mid-conflict I have viewed, once the initial rather predictable scenes regarding being called to action are cast to one side. The film managed to convey the tension of life aboard a submarine at this time, with the weakest parts those based outside of the submarine. John Mills' face shows great communication when presented with difficult decisions and made the film work, whilst not going so far as being unbelievable. A very good effort in what must have been tricky film making times.

I am a fan of submarine books and movies. Most of the movies are crap. I happened to stumble on this movie on UCSD-TV (San Diego) last night and was instantly enthralled. So much more realistic (IMHO) than the typical (American) submarine movie. Compare to "Destination Tokyo" (which I like), for instance. In that movie everything is bright and shiny and relatively uncramped. In WDaD I was thinking "whoa, Das Boot but British". Yeah, it's not perfect but I (like a previous reviewer) was impressed by the portrayal of the difficult submerged attack on the "Brandenburg".

So is this where the old "shoot a bunch of junk out of a torpedo tube so they'll think we're sunk" ploy actually originated?

Anyhoo, on my (short) list of good WWII submarine movies, I would have to put this in the top 5.