MovieChat Forums > Action in the North Atlantic (1943) Discussion > The last 15 minutes (spoilers)

The last 15 minutes (spoilers)

posted 16 years ago by parillamilt
9 replies | jump to latest

I just caught the last 30 minutes of this movie today and I was a little surprised how much effort they put into the model making. In the battle between the German planes and the ship, it was also surprising when the crew were getting killed off right and left. A pretty good action sequence for the 40's.

The thing that was making me scratch my head a bit was the last 15 minutes of the movie. First, they are recovering from the plane attack and then rather abruptly, a German sub appears and quickly fires a torpedo. Then in less than 2 minutes, the sub surfaces, the sub crew gets out to finish the ship, then the ship rams the sub. Is there a reel missing or something? The action sequence time is just a fraction of the plane attack and before we wondered what just happened, the movie moved onto the funeral scene. Looks like they needed at least 5 minutes to establish the sub action sequence. It's a very truncated series of events.

The funeral scene at the end must have really pushed some buttons for the families on the home front with all those flag draped bodies. This movie didn't sugar coat anything.

[–] shamu48 16 years ago

You'd have to see the first 15 or so minutes of the movie to understand exactly why the SEA WITCH rammed the German sub. As they say, "Paybacks are Hell."

[–] alowe-1 16 years ago

They like to use time compression in movies. You may not be aware of exactly how much time actually passes.

[–] noobzilla 14 years ago

Ive seen this movie dozens of times.. there is a definite cut between the plane attack and the german sub attack.. in fact there are several cuts.. an entire night goes by.. you must be remembering this sequence incorrectly.

-- “A hot dog at the ball park is better than steak at the Ritz.” Humphrey Bogart

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] highwaystar50 10 years ago

The only thing that I don't get is that the sub that torpedoes the ship was the same one that fired on, and missed, the ship earlier in the movie when it was still in the convoy. Why the sub followed them almost all the way to Murmansk I don't get unless the sub captain really wanted to sink an American liberty ship. The sub could have just waited around for the next convoy to come by.
KS

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] highwaystar50 10 years ago

To be accurate, I wrote almost all the way, not all the way. It's in my quote.

This U-Boat was part of the "wolf pack" that attacked the convoy. The Sea Witch got away. A day or two later they are attacked by the Heinkels off of the coast of Norway. Later they are again attacked and this time torpedoed by that same U-Boat. I'm sure that the movie compressed time a little bit but the sub followed for a day and a night at the very least. Maximum speed of a liberty ship is only about 13 miles per hour after all and it took roughly ten days to get from Iceland to northern Russia.

How easy would it be to wait for the next convoy to come by? Convoys bound for Murmansk went through the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland. Even convoys from the UK went that route. This made it easier for U-Boats to find them than if they were in the open ocean. This is also where the German raiders (battleships and cruisers)liked to sit and wait for convoys. Many convoys and ships passed through that route. The U-Boat had a sure deal if it waited for the next convoy.

Regarding their range, subs had sub tenders that they would meet up with to refuel and rearm so they had, for all intents and purposes, unlimited range.
KS

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] highwaystar50 10 years ago

The Germans had a tough time keeping their subs replenished at sea. This may have been partly due to their own reticence - at sea replenishment requires a fair amount of radio coordination during which time, there's a high risk of DF and also decryption by the other side. The Germans tried swapping surface suppliers for submarine tankers, but had no better luck. They built only about 10 and pretty much all of them were sunk by the summer of '43. Submarine tankers were were probably intended to assist subs in the Western Atlantic, which explains why few were anywhere near Murmansk when they were sunk.

Too bad we don't know exactly what class the U-boat in the movie was supposed to be. If a class 2, they had a range of about 1800 miles but if it was supposed to be a class 7, depending on its type it had a range of between 6200 to over 14 thousand nautical miles. It was probably harder to keep them stocked with torpedoes than fuel.
KS