Does anyone know what ship that actually was, and the place and circumstances of its sinking?
Plainly this was footage of a real vessel going down, and P&P blended it in well with what was shot for the movie, but Powell's dedication to verisimilitude clearly didn't extend to having a real freighter torpedoed for him by an overly-cooperative Royal Canadian Navy!
Watching it again (Criterion DVD) I expect it's just a clip taken from a newsreel. We see it stern on. Maybe a close up view of a good print on the big screen might give the ship's name on the stern.
The mate questioned by Hirth says it's the Aanticostilite. Or that's what the Criterion subtitles say, but I know they do make mistakes, especially with real names.
Steve
I've always assumed it's a newsreel shot, too, but of what ship and under what circumstances? Unfortunately there is plainly no name visible on its stern, which in itself is kind of odd. But in watching the scene again I was reminded of something else that doesn't look right to me. See what you think.
There are three shots of the ship sinking, all from the stern. Look at the difference in the stern as seen in the first and last shots, and as it appears in the second (where the Captain and Hirth are watching the ship go down from the conning tower).
In the first and third shots, the stern is quite large and rounded, with the ship's hull gradually tapering down, but very high. In the second one, however, the stern area is very "shallow", abruptly cutting way back only a few feet (maybe ten or twelve) below the deck. The hull is completely different, its underside black and scalloped inward, instead of the rounded look seen in the other two shots.
Now, before you say it, it's true that the second shot shows the stern rearing well out of the water, with the propellers now in sight, whereas the props aren't visible in the other two, where the ship is lower in the water. But: look at the depth and contours of the stern as seen in the first and last shots -- the deep, rounded stern, without any sign of the abruptly cut off deck or underside seen in the second shot. This is much more than just a case of the ship not having lifted up out of the water enough. The rounded stern runs far too low compared to the sharper stern seen in the middle shot. If they were all the same, we'd see the shallower stern in all the shots. The stern is sufficiently above the water to show that. Check it out.
All of which leads me to wonder something improbable: could these be shots of two different vessels going down? Both freighters, but of different design. Frankly, I have a hard time believing this, so here's an alternative explanation (which may also explain another matter): was a partial mock-up of a freighter (the stern portion) manufactured for this film, and used in the first and third shots? Apart from the differences in the shape and size of the stern, the "full" stern (especially as seen in the first shot) has an odd look to it, almost as if it was made out of something other than steel plates.
By contrast, the middle shot is clearly an actual ship, with rust discoloration plainly visible. Also, we don't see the propellers in shots one and three, and since they were visible in the second shot, as the ship reared up, logically they should be visible in the third sequence when the ship has sunk even lower. A mock-up would be much easier to build if you didn't have to construct fake propellers. Shots of a mock-up of part of a freighter could have been integrated with the shot of a real vessel sinking seen in the middle sequence. And if you look very closely, the look of the film in the second shot seems rougher, more like a newsreel, than do the first and third shots, which fit in with the look of the rest of the movie.
A mock-up might also explain why there was no name on the stern, though it would have been easy enough to paint one on. (In truth, we can't see a name in the second shot either, but the angle is more oblique. Still, if it was there we should be able to catch a glimpse.)
But that minor aspect aside, the sterns look completely different from the back and underside. The equipment seen on the deck looks about the same (though you could argue tiny differences), but if a mock-up was made to roughly duplicate the shot of an actual sinking vessel this would be expected.
Maybe I'm raving, or dense. But look again. I've noticed this for a long time but never thought much about it. But now I'm really curious.
By the way, I've also always wondered what the name of the ship in the film is. The mate isn't clear. It sounds to me something like "Antecostal Light" (as in "lighthouse", perhaps), but I'm sure it was made up. The Criterion subtitle does sound bizarre, but maybe it's correct.
Oh yes, they are different. I never noticed, and me an ex-sailor (amateur). But I agree with one of your ravings, that 1 & 3 are the same ship, but from different angles. Number 2 is definitely a different ship. I think that 1 & 3 are a real ship as well. They don't all stick their tail in the air as they sink. There would have been plenty of newsreel shots of ships being sunk that far into the war. The Battle of the Atlantic started early and continued through most of the war with very little respite.
One odd and unfair feature of it was that crews were signed on per voyage. Each direction was a separate contract and as soon as they were sunk the contract was deemed to have finished, so their pay was stopped - even if they then had to spend some time in a lifeboat before being rescued or reaching land.
But it was essential that the convoys continued to bring us supplies, food, war materiel and later men from the ex-colonies (like the US of A).
Notice that both merchant ships appear to have a gun at the stern. This was fairly common but they were really more for the morale of the crew. They weren't much use against torpedoes and would have been totally useless against battleships like the Graf Spee
Steve
"Ravings"? Should I feel miffed?
Yes, both vessels (1/3 and 2) had that stern gun, but it looked as though #2 might have had fewer guns (or whatever they are near the gun in the ship seen in #1 and #3) than the other. Hard to tell some things. But I'm glad you see that they're different vessels too.
Upon reflection, yes, they must both be real ships, not yet another specially-built one, like the U-37. Neither is seen in the same shot with the sub, nor are any of the crew (in the lifeboat or in the water) visible in the shots of the freighter(s).
Incidentally, I finally had a brainstorm (brainwave in Britain). I froze the film on the close-up of the piece of paper labeled CANADIAN EASTERN DEFENCE in the scene at RCN HQ in Halifax, which bears the information signaled from the sinking freighter. On it, very plainly, is written the elusive name of the ship:
Anticostilite.
Not that I know what that is, or refers to. Something that's against costilites? It might be interesting to try to find out about this name.
Cheers! (Just raving with drink....)
Interesting observations, my young fireman friend. To me it's clear that they are two different ships, no doubt at all. Among other discrepancies, notice the rather large aft funnel on the ship in views one and three, but utter absence of that funnel in view number two. I don't know what the source of the footage is, but it does appear to be genuine footage of two different ships in actual distress. I don't know if these were actual wartime sinkings that were caught on film, or possibly maritime disasters that were filmed before the war, and they just spliced them in for convenience sake.
I'm surprised the survivors in the lifeboat made such an effort to head for the very U-boat that sank them, when it would have made more sense simply to head for the nearby coast. They had already radioed a distress call with their coordinates, so even if the coast was an isolated part of Canada, at least their whereabouts would have been known to search and rescue crews. Also was wondering why the lifeboat did not have the name of its ship painted on it, "Antecostal Light" or whatever the ship's name was. Am not sure that the depiction of U-boat crews being indifferent or hostile to survivors is accurate, either. I believe there are many documented cases where U-boat crews expressed sympathy and aid for survivors after sinking their ship. But of course maybe exceptions existed, too. Whatever, the hostility depicted in the film probably was a necessary addition meant to serve the filmmaker's intentions.
Lastly, I think this depiction of two different ships actually qualifies as a continuity goof. Many continuity goofs I've seen listed on IMDb are so insignificant they seem like mere nitpicking, but I think in this case, the inclusion of footage of two distinctly different ships actually leads the viewer to believe that the German raider had just sunk not one, but two different ships, so it actually leads to some confusion on the viewer's part (at least with me it did). So yeah, I think this is a valid continuity goof.
You know, for whatever reason it hadn't occurred to me to submit this as a goof, but will do so now. I suppose I wanted outside confirmation of what my lying eyes told me. I also thought the funnels looked different, but that was harder to tell.
I suspect the two ships shown were not wartime sinkings, only because I don't know how many such sinkings would have been on film as early as 1940-41. Not that it makes much difference, I suppose.
The name of the ship, by the way, is the "Anticostilite", which I subsequently mentioned on another thread. I got it by freeze-framing the close-up of the piece of paper containing the report on the sinking in the scene at the Canadian Defence Headquarters in Halifax. Meanwhile, Steve Crook mentioned the island of Anticosti, somewhere in the vicinity (I haven't looked it up yet), so clearly the ship's name stems from that island...though I don't get that "lite" suffix.
I agree that the U-boat crew was much more hostile and murderous than seems to have been the norm in WWII. Usually they were sympathetic to the sailors whose ships they had just sunk. The Kriegsmarine was also the least Nazified branch of the German services. Still, this was wartime proaganda, and let's face it, they were the ones who started it.
I've also wondered why the men didn't make for the shore of a nearby island rather than try to find refuge on board the U-boat. I can't imagine they'd want to be taken prisoner. Not that being marooned on a barren island in a cold climate is good, but as you say the RCAF knew where they were and a ship could be sent to pick them up. But it's also true that a lot of the men were in the water (there was only one lifeboat), and that water had to be very cold, even if it was summer. The men couldn't have lasted too long in it, and in any case they'd be exhausted from swimming. The survivors looked understandably shell-shocked and pahetic, but for seamen they also seemed a bit disorganized in managing their evacuation.
I'm not so sure that it would count as a goof. Maybe an item of trivia. It wasn't unknown for a U-boat to fire at more than one ship in rapid succession when they were attacking convoys out in the Atlantic. But here we're meant to be in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
It's hard to know if they were wartime sinkings. Not many ships sink apart from due to enemy action (or icebergs, or bad driving (Costa Concordia)). There's no obvious signs of damage to either ship. No smoke or fire and no big holes in them - that we can see
Steve
I appreciate your comments, Steve: in the broader historical sense you are correct, that U-boats were capable of multiple "kills" in short order. But that doesn't fit the narrative of this particular movie. Here we have one U-boat, one ship, one sinking, one crew in distress. No other ship really figures into the narrative. Rewind the film, replay and look at the opening scene again. It is clear that only one ship has been sunk. The Nazis on the sub aren't looking at two different ships in distress, only one. There is only one batch of survivors in the water, from one torpedoed ship, not two. And yet in the short clips, we see two distinctly different hull types. So for these reasons, I think this qualifies as a valid goof, and it is a valid goof, not one of those trivial nitpicking goofs that we so often see on IMDb.
share