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Ah, the sea. | 0:00:05 | 0:00:08 | |
For centuries it has washed up great stories. | 0:00:08 | 0:00:11 | |
Of Jason and the Argonauts, of Horatio Hornblower, of Moby Dick. | 0:00:11 | 0:00:15 | |
But in more recent times, it has given up a different kind of story, | 0:00:15 | 0:00:19 | |
one that, until the last century or so, | 0:00:19 | 0:00:21 | |
remained hidden beneath the waves. | 0:00:21 | 0:00:23 | |
But because of countless films, | 0:00:23 | 0:00:26 | |
we instantly recognise it in all its nerve-shredding glory. | 0:00:26 | 0:00:30 | |
Incoming torpedo! | 0:00:34 | 0:00:36 | |
Oh, my God! | 0:00:36 | 0:00:38 | |
Yes, the pressure cooker that is the submarine movie | 0:00:40 | 0:00:43 | |
has been with us since the dawn of film. | 0:00:43 | 0:00:45 | |
But why has it gripped us so? | 0:00:45 | 0:00:47 | |
To find out, let's bring on the subs. | 0:00:47 | 0:00:49 | |
I've loved submarine films since I was a boy. | 0:01:00 | 0:01:03 | |
The fact that I didn't learn to swim until I was nearly 40 | 0:01:03 | 0:01:06 | |
never put me off the subaquatic life. | 0:01:06 | 0:01:08 | |
The submarine, for me, is still one of the most incredible pieces of kit | 0:01:08 | 0:01:12 | |
I've ever encountered. | 0:01:12 | 0:01:14 | |
But for filmmaker, the humble submersible | 0:01:14 | 0:01:17 | |
is an excuse to take us places | 0:01:17 | 0:01:19 | |
we'd probably never get to go in our lives, | 0:01:19 | 0:01:21 | |
and in so doing, delivers all the elements that great drama requires. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:26 | |
But, bless my white, ribbed seaman's polo neck, the submarine movie | 0:01:26 | 0:01:30 | |
has created its very own cinematic language | 0:01:30 | 0:01:33 | |
and no great sub movie would be the same without... | 0:01:33 | 0:01:36 | |
Excessive periscope action. | 0:01:36 | 0:01:38 | |
Down periscope. | 0:01:38 | 0:01:40 | |
Testosterone-fuelled power struggles. | 0:01:40 | 0:01:43 | |
-PING -The ping of the sonar. | 0:01:43 | 0:01:46 | |
One ping only, please. | 0:01:46 | 0:01:49 | |
Booming depth charges. | 0:01:49 | 0:01:52 | |
Courageous John Mills. | 0:01:52 | 0:01:55 | |
-Dive, dive. -Dive, dive, dive, sir. | 0:01:55 | 0:01:56 | |
Plummeting pressure dials. | 0:01:56 | 0:01:59 | |
Whoosh of torpedoes. | 0:02:01 | 0:02:03 | |
Sweaty but meaningful looks. | 0:02:03 | 0:02:07 | |
Valiant John Mills. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:09 | |
Looks as if we've got it on a plate. | 0:02:09 | 0:02:11 | |
The Russians. The Germans. | 0:02:11 | 0:02:14 | |
The Japanese. Gung-ho Americans. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:19 | |
Plucky Brits. | 0:02:19 | 0:02:21 | |
Blimey. We're through. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:23 | |
-And the fearless John Mills. -Stand by and hold on tight. | 0:02:23 | 0:02:26 | |
People in a locked, trapped environment. | 0:02:26 | 0:02:31 | |
It is claustrophobia, fear. | 0:02:31 | 0:02:35 | |
It's about fortitude. | 0:02:35 | 0:02:37 | |
It's like being buried alive. | 0:02:39 | 0:02:42 | |
The stakes are immense. | 0:02:42 | 0:02:44 | |
You are in a very free world in an un-free environment. | 0:02:44 | 0:02:47 | |
That's unique to the submarine genre. | 0:02:47 | 0:02:50 | |
It is my mission to dive deeper to discover | 0:03:02 | 0:03:04 | |
not just why submarine movies hold us in thrall | 0:03:04 | 0:03:07 | |
but also to recall some of the real events that inspired these films, | 0:03:07 | 0:03:11 | |
and to bring to the surface the undercurrents | 0:03:11 | 0:03:15 | |
that these films reflect. | 0:03:15 | 0:03:16 | |
This is the River Medway, about 30 miles south east of London | 0:03:20 | 0:03:24 | |
and I'm looking for an intriguing relic of the Cold War | 0:03:24 | 0:03:27 | |
that's hereabouts. | 0:03:27 | 0:03:29 | |
And here's what I've been looking for. | 0:03:35 | 0:03:38 | |
U-475 Black Widow. | 0:03:40 | 0:03:43 | |
Russian hunter-killer class. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:46 | |
Built in 1967. Saw active service in the Russian Baltic fleet. | 0:03:46 | 0:03:50 | |
She was once armed with 22 torpedoes, | 0:03:52 | 0:03:54 | |
and here's the bit that makes people nervous - two nuclear warheads. | 0:03:54 | 0:03:59 | |
Brought to the UK as a tourist attraction | 0:04:00 | 0:04:03 | |
and now fallen on hard times, | 0:04:03 | 0:04:05 | |
this Black Widow still offers a rare chance to see, first hand, | 0:04:05 | 0:04:10 | |
a once-feared predator. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:12 | |
Submarines were never more impressive | 0:04:12 | 0:04:14 | |
than during the Cold War era. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:16 | |
Hollywood knew this better than anyone | 0:04:16 | 0:04:19 | |
and built submarine movies to match. | 0:04:19 | 0:04:21 | |
The film that best captured the conventions of this period | 0:04:29 | 0:04:32 | |
is The Hunt For Red October, | 0:04:32 | 0:04:34 | |
which was based on Tom Clancy's bestselling techno-thriller. | 0:04:34 | 0:04:37 | |
Once more, | 0:04:39 | 0:04:41 | |
we play our dangerous game. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:43 | |
A game of chess against our old adversary. | 0:04:43 | 0:04:47 | |
The American navy. | 0:04:47 | 0:04:49 | |
Sean Connery plays a Soviet submarine captain who, | 0:04:50 | 0:04:54 | |
along with his crew, | 0:04:54 | 0:04:55 | |
is apparently about to defect to the United States. | 0:04:55 | 0:04:58 | |
His boat, the Red October, | 0:04:58 | 0:05:00 | |
is equipped with a revolutionary new silent propulsion system, | 0:05:00 | 0:05:04 | |
making it virtually undetectable to the Americans. | 0:05:04 | 0:05:08 | |
Sonar is working, Captain. The Russian disappeared. | 0:05:12 | 0:05:15 | |
The Hunt For Red October has various things. It's a Cold War thriller. | 0:05:17 | 0:05:21 | |
It's big budget submarine movie. | 0:05:21 | 0:05:25 | |
It's a vehicle for Sean Connery doing one of his maverick noble | 0:05:25 | 0:05:30 | |
authority figures, | 0:05:30 | 0:05:31 | |
and here's this sonar-inaudible device, now that's really scary. | 0:05:31 | 0:05:37 | |
It reminds me of the heady days of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin, | 0:05:37 | 0:05:41 | |
when the world trembled at the sound of our rockets. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:44 | |
And they will tremble again, at the sound of our silence. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:48 | |
The order is engage the silent drive. | 0:05:48 | 0:05:51 | |
Aye, sir. Open outer doors. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:55 | |
Diving command, engage caterpillar and secure main engines. | 0:05:55 | 0:05:59 | |
If film producers wanted to capture the majesty | 0:06:01 | 0:06:05 | |
of these multi-million dollar machines at sea | 0:06:05 | 0:06:08 | |
they had only one option. | 0:06:08 | 0:06:10 | |
They had to do a deal with the US Navy. | 0:06:10 | 0:06:14 | |
Passing Thor's Twins, sir. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:19 | |
Bob Anderson is the director | 0:06:22 | 0:06:24 | |
of the US Navy's Office of Information in Los Angeles. | 0:06:24 | 0:06:28 | |
If a major studio wants to use one of their submarines for filming, | 0:06:28 | 0:06:32 | |
he's the man they have to convince. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:34 | |
Our charter from the Department of Defence is that the script | 0:06:36 | 0:06:39 | |
must be accurate, must reflect accurately what the military does, | 0:06:39 | 0:06:43 | |
so we have to look at that. | 0:06:45 | 0:06:46 | |
Has to be of informational value to the American public | 0:06:46 | 0:06:50 | |
and it doesn't hurt if it helps recruiting! | 0:06:50 | 0:06:52 | |
Deck nine, what you got, Jones? | 0:06:52 | 0:06:54 | |
Distant contact, probably submerged. | 0:06:54 | 0:06:57 | |
It's a wild guess, but I'd say we hit a boomer coming out of the barn | 0:06:57 | 0:07:00 | |
Could be a missile boat out of Polijarny. | 0:07:00 | 0:07:04 | |
-OK, start your track, I'll be there in a minute. -Sonar, aye. | 0:07:04 | 0:07:09 | |
We put a lot of effort into making sure that they don't | 0:07:09 | 0:07:11 | |
give away classified information but when we deal with something | 0:07:11 | 0:07:14 | |
like a submarine security system or something | 0:07:14 | 0:07:17 | |
we go to the people who are involved in that | 0:07:17 | 0:07:20 | |
and get the unclassified version | 0:07:20 | 0:07:22 | |
and get the elements that they can put into the film. | 0:07:22 | 0:07:25 | |
You juggle that with a tremendous opportunity to inform the people | 0:07:25 | 0:07:29 | |
about what our submarines do and what those people are out there doing. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:34 | |
But this drive by film makers | 0:07:46 | 0:07:48 | |
to get the US Navy's most impressive war machines on the big screen, | 0:07:48 | 0:07:53 | |
leaves a wishy-washy liberal like me just a tad concerned. | 0:07:53 | 0:07:58 | |
Because somewhere along the way, the line between | 0:07:58 | 0:08:01 | |
entertaining feature film and highly elaborate recruitment tool | 0:08:01 | 0:08:06 | |
became very blurred. | 0:08:06 | 0:08:08 | |
For the US Navy, any movie in which they are involved | 0:08:10 | 0:08:14 | |
is viewed as a recruitment opportunity | 0:08:14 | 0:08:16 | |
and they will even hand out promotional material | 0:08:16 | 0:08:19 | |
to members of the public inside the cinema where the film is playing. | 0:08:19 | 0:08:23 | |
We do that for just about every military picture, | 0:08:24 | 0:08:27 | |
they invite the recruiters down to set up tables | 0:08:27 | 0:08:31 | |
and meet people that come out of the film and might be interested in | 0:08:31 | 0:08:34 | |
getting more information on the Navy. | 0:08:34 | 0:08:36 | |
We've had a very good relationship with theatre operators to do that. | 0:08:36 | 0:08:41 | |
We're very grateful that they do. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:44 | |
Diving officer, make a depth 1200 feet, 20 degree down. | 0:08:44 | 0:08:49 | |
While it may be that the US Navy simply want to | 0:08:49 | 0:08:52 | |
use the movie for their own purposes, | 0:08:52 | 0:08:54 | |
and, reportedly, recruitment did surge | 0:08:54 | 0:08:56 | |
in the year following the film's release, | 0:08:56 | 0:08:59 | |
for director John McTiernan the opportunity for actors | 0:08:59 | 0:09:02 | |
to experience life on board a real, operational submarine, | 0:09:02 | 0:09:07 | |
helped them to achieve a more authentic performance. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:11 | |
The Navy guys taught our actors to be a lot less gung ho | 0:09:11 | 0:09:16 | |
and a lot less emotional and a lot less warrior-like | 0:09:16 | 0:09:22 | |
because that isn't what the real men are like. | 0:09:22 | 0:09:24 | |
Men on a submarine behave the way men do in a monastery. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:30 | |
In fact it's very much like a monastery. | 0:09:30 | 0:09:33 | |
Well, I'll be damned. Now what? | 0:09:33 | 0:09:36 | |
'Submariners speak softly.' | 0:09:36 | 0:09:38 | |
All right. If defection... | 0:09:38 | 0:09:39 | |
'They never move quickly.' | 0:09:43 | 0:09:45 | |
They don't make very large gestures when they talk, | 0:09:45 | 0:09:48 | |
they make small gestures. | 0:09:48 | 0:09:49 | |
mr Thompson, call Chief Watson to the conn with his sidearm. | 0:09:49 | 0:09:54 | |
'It showed them as men who were not in the least eager | 0:09:54 | 0:09:57 | |
'to go to war with anyone. | 0:09:57 | 0:09:59 | |
'It showed them as intelligent and the Navy liked all that.' | 0:09:59 | 0:10:02 | |
They really did. | 0:10:02 | 0:10:04 | |
However there are occasions when the US Navy isn't always on board | 0:10:06 | 0:10:10 | |
with the filmmakers. | 0:10:10 | 0:10:12 | |
-Control, bridge, sounding. -Bridge, control. | 0:10:12 | 0:10:16 | |
Crimson Tide was a 1995 release directed by Tony Scott | 0:10:16 | 0:10:22 | |
from a screenplay by Mike Schiffer. | 0:10:22 | 0:10:24 | |
Lookouts, clear the bridge. | 0:10:24 | 0:10:25 | |
Clear the bridge, aye, sir. | 0:10:25 | 0:10:27 | |
Set just after the Cold War, on a US submarine, | 0:10:27 | 0:10:31 | |
a young first officer stages a mutiny to prevent | 0:10:31 | 0:10:35 | |
his captain launching a nuclear missile | 0:10:35 | 0:10:37 | |
against a group of Russian rebels. | 0:10:37 | 0:10:41 | |
You continue upon this course | 0:10:41 | 0:10:42 | |
and insist upon this launch without confirming this message first. | 0:10:42 | 0:10:45 | |
And by the rules of precedence... | 0:10:45 | 0:10:47 | |
As captain and commanding officer of the USS Alabama | 0:10:47 | 0:10:50 | |
I order you to place the XO under arrest on a charge of mutiny. | 0:10:50 | 0:10:53 | |
I say again, I order you to place the XO | 0:10:53 | 0:10:56 | |
under arrest on a charge of mutiny. | 0:10:56 | 0:10:59 | |
For the US Navy, an onscreen mutiny was totally unacceptable | 0:11:02 | 0:11:07 | |
and they pulled the plug on their support. | 0:11:07 | 0:11:10 | |
There was one in 1849, there was a small mutiny on board a ship there, | 0:11:10 | 0:11:14 | |
but we've never had one and it's just such a strong thing with us | 0:11:14 | 0:11:21 | |
not to portray the reality of something like that happening | 0:11:21 | 0:11:26 | |
because we don't feel it ever would happen. | 0:11:26 | 0:11:28 | |
We gave the producers several other scenarios that they could choose | 0:11:28 | 0:11:33 | |
and, for reasons that you would have to get from them, | 0:11:33 | 0:11:37 | |
they wanted to stick to the one they had | 0:11:37 | 0:11:40 | |
and we helped them up to the point as far as we could | 0:11:40 | 0:11:43 | |
and then we had to break off and let them go their own way. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:47 | |
-Control ready? -Aye, sir. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:49 | |
-Launcher ready? -Aye, sir. | 0:11:49 | 0:11:51 | |
Initiate fire. | 0:11:51 | 0:11:53 | |
Freeze, hold it! Drop the weapon now! | 0:11:53 | 0:11:57 | |
Move, move. move! | 0:11:57 | 0:11:58 | |
Fire one! | 0:11:58 | 0:12:00 | |
Number one did not fire, sir. | 0:12:00 | 0:12:02 | |
Sir, the captain's key has been removed. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:08 | |
Hunter. | 0:12:08 | 0:12:10 | |
I felt that every great movie about submarines | 0:12:10 | 0:12:13 | |
and many great movies about the Navy involve this kind of power struggle. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:19 | |
Run Silent Run Deep, The Caine Mutiny. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:22 | |
Mutinies are part of the lore of great navy tales but they decided | 0:12:22 | 0:12:26 | |
because there was a mutiny on board they wouldn't support it | 0:12:26 | 0:12:29 | |
and we were very disappointed. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:31 | |
The biggest loss would have been | 0:12:31 | 0:12:34 | |
the loss of these beauty shots of the submarines at sea. | 0:12:34 | 0:12:37 | |
Once you're underneath it you have to build a set anyway, | 0:12:37 | 0:12:40 | |
you're not going to shoot in a live submarine. | 0:12:40 | 0:12:42 | |
And Tony Scott, God bless him, went to Hawaii, | 0:12:42 | 0:12:45 | |
rented a helicopter and cowboyed those shots | 0:12:45 | 0:12:48 | |
of the USS Alabama submerging, which are beautiful. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:52 | |
I think he got ordered out of air space! | 0:12:52 | 0:12:54 | |
I really think he stole those shots. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:56 | |
I'm eternally grateful. | 0:12:56 | 0:12:59 | |
These high-concept blockbusters may be the biggest manifestations | 0:12:59 | 0:13:03 | |
of the submarine movie, | 0:13:03 | 0:13:05 | |
but there were many others that set sail before them. | 0:13:05 | 0:13:08 | |
From the moment the very first submarine was built | 0:13:08 | 0:13:11 | |
it gripped the imagination of writers and filmmakers. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:14 | |
In fact, the first fictional submarine | 0:13:14 | 0:13:17 | |
was planted in the public's imagination in 1870 by a Frenchman, | 0:13:17 | 0:13:21 | |
the writer Jules Verne. | 0:13:21 | 0:13:23 | |
In his novel 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, | 0:13:23 | 0:13:26 | |
a renowned professor sets off to investigate | 0:13:26 | 0:13:29 | |
the mysterious disappearance of ships in the Pacific Ocean. | 0:13:29 | 0:13:32 | |
He encounters the anti-hero Captain Nemo, | 0:13:32 | 0:13:36 | |
in his futuristic submarine, Nautilus. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:40 | |
It was Verne's wonderful science fantasy that, a few years later, | 0:13:40 | 0:13:44 | |
would inspire a new breed of storyteller. | 0:13:44 | 0:13:47 | |
In fact, one of the first films ever made was a submarine movie in 1907, | 0:13:48 | 0:13:55 | |
directed by George Melies, a pioneer of early cinema. | 0:13:55 | 0:13:59 | |
His 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea film | 0:13:59 | 0:14:03 | |
features a fantastic journey done with big cardboard cut-out sets, | 0:14:03 | 0:14:10 | |
and then you get a line of very pretty chorus girls | 0:14:10 | 0:14:13 | |
who come on and do a very elegant ballet. | 0:14:13 | 0:14:15 | |
It's in line with the kind of stage revue | 0:14:15 | 0:14:18 | |
that you would have seen at the Moulin Rouge or the Folies Bergere | 0:14:18 | 0:14:21 | |
at that time. | 0:14:21 | 0:14:22 | |
It's a long way from Jules Verne's story about, you know, | 0:14:22 | 0:14:26 | |
hard-bitten adventurers facing incredible risks. | 0:14:26 | 0:14:29 | |
It's really a different world. | 0:14:29 | 0:14:31 | |
This is a very rare print of Melies' work. | 0:14:33 | 0:14:37 | |
In 1913, his company went bankrupt and the French Army | 0:14:37 | 0:14:41 | |
seized some 500 of his films in order to use the cellulose | 0:14:41 | 0:14:46 | |
to make boot heels for their soldiers in the First World War. | 0:14:46 | 0:14:49 | |
As a result, many of his films no longer exist. | 0:14:49 | 0:14:54 | |
But it wasn't just Melies who took inspiration from Verne. | 0:14:58 | 0:15:02 | |
In 1916, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea was re-made | 0:15:02 | 0:15:07 | |
by Glasgow-born director Stuart Paton | 0:15:07 | 0:15:10 | |
for Hollywood studio Universal. | 0:15:10 | 0:15:12 | |
This feature-length version was much more faithful to the Verne story | 0:15:12 | 0:15:17 | |
and was applauded | 0:15:17 | 0:15:18 | |
for its groundbreaking underwater photography. | 0:15:18 | 0:15:20 | |
Perhaps not a great film in the annals of cinema, | 0:15:22 | 0:15:25 | |
but it really does take seriously | 0:15:25 | 0:15:27 | |
how to produce those under-sea effects. | 0:15:27 | 0:15:29 | |
And the diving sequences looked very convincing. | 0:15:29 | 0:15:34 | |
Much more convincing than anything that had been done before. | 0:15:34 | 0:15:36 | |
We really believe that we're under the sea. | 0:15:36 | 0:15:39 | |
This was the start of our obsession with the submarine | 0:15:42 | 0:15:45 | |
and the story-telling opportunities it presented. | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
If early filmmakers used it as a springboard for the imagination, | 0:15:48 | 0:15:52 | |
there was one further element that would establish | 0:15:52 | 0:15:56 | |
the cinematic submarine story and that was the Second World War. | 0:15:56 | 0:16:00 | |
There were a handful of submarine movies made before World War II, | 0:16:03 | 0:16:06 | |
including a couple of talkies | 0:16:06 | 0:16:07 | |
directed by John Ford and Frank Capra. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:09 | |
But it wasn't until the outbreak of that war, | 0:16:09 | 0:16:12 | |
where submarines played a vital strategic role, | 0:16:12 | 0:16:15 | |
that the British public became fascinated with the submarine movie. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:18 | |
None more so than the 1943 classic We Dive at Dawn. | 0:16:18 | 0:16:23 | |
Stop starboard, slow port. | 0:16:23 | 0:16:25 | |
Destroyer, maybe a screen. | 0:16:25 | 0:16:27 | |
-You getting anything? -No, sir. | 0:16:27 | 0:16:29 | |
Wait a minute. Picking her up now. | 0:16:29 | 0:16:32 | |
-Two of them. -Up periscope. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:34 | |
The film stars plucky John Mills, yes, it's him, | 0:16:36 | 0:16:41 | |
in the first of his many Second World War submarine pictures | 0:16:41 | 0:16:44 | |
as the captain of HMS Sea Tiger | 0:16:44 | 0:16:46 | |
on a top-secret mission to sink the German battleship, the Brandenburg. | 0:16:46 | 0:16:50 | |
Plate, plate. | 0:16:50 | 0:16:52 | |
It's her, the Brandenburg. | 0:17:02 | 0:17:04 | |
Blow up all tubes. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:06 | |
Blow up all tubes. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:09 | |
Made at a time when allied forces were suffering severe losses, | 0:17:11 | 0:17:16 | |
the film, with its message of solidarity, was intended | 0:17:16 | 0:17:20 | |
as a morale booster to calm public anxieties regarding Britain's role | 0:17:20 | 0:17:24 | |
in the Second World War. | 0:17:24 | 0:17:25 | |
Confound it, | 0:17:25 | 0:17:27 | |
she's dancing about like a pea in a blasted drum. | 0:17:27 | 0:17:30 | |
Making films about the Second World War was pretty difficult | 0:17:30 | 0:17:34 | |
while the war was still on because there were tremendous restrictions | 0:17:34 | 0:17:37 | |
about what could be shown. | 0:17:37 | 0:17:38 | |
-Fire! -Fire! -Fire! | 0:17:38 | 0:17:40 | |
And there were real anxieties about alarming the public, | 0:17:40 | 0:17:43 | |
so there was a bit of a prohibition on being too realistic. | 0:17:43 | 0:17:48 | |
It was very important that no-one was seen to panic, | 0:17:53 | 0:17:56 | |
'so nobody panics, but they sweat.' | 0:17:56 | 0:17:58 | |
EXPLOSION | 0:17:58 | 0:18:00 | |
-Pump all engine room bilges. -Pump all engine room bilges. | 0:18:03 | 0:18:06 | |
It was also trying to send a message back to the home front | 0:18:06 | 0:18:09 | |
that in the dire circumstances | 0:18:09 | 0:18:11 | |
we really had to pull together and forget old differences. | 0:18:11 | 0:18:15 | |
There's a leak in the water room and we can't get a suction on the pump. | 0:18:16 | 0:18:19 | |
Right, get a bucket team going. | 0:18:19 | 0:18:22 | |
Right, get all the buckets you can find and bring them on. | 0:18:22 | 0:18:25 | |
The home of the Royal Navy Submarine Service during the Second World War | 0:18:33 | 0:18:38 | |
was HMS Dolphin, at Gosport. | 0:18:38 | 0:18:40 | |
Now it is the location of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum | 0:18:40 | 0:18:44 | |
and I have come here to try and understand | 0:18:44 | 0:18:46 | |
what it was really like for the men who served on submarines | 0:18:46 | 0:18:49 | |
during the war. | 0:18:49 | 0:18:51 | |
This is HMS Alliance. | 0:18:54 | 0:18:56 | |
Launched towards the end of the Second World War, | 0:18:56 | 0:18:59 | |
she is the only surviving example of her class. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:02 | |
The simulated depth charge experience on board Alliance | 0:19:08 | 0:19:11 | |
is probably as close as I will get to the real thing. | 0:19:11 | 0:19:15 | |
SONAR BEEPS | 0:19:16 | 0:19:19 | |
RUMBLING | 0:19:21 | 0:19:23 | |
There's no point denying it - I jumped at a sound effect. | 0:19:35 | 0:19:39 | |
That was terrifying. | 0:19:39 | 0:19:41 | |
Blimey. | 0:19:41 | 0:19:43 | |
Dive, dive, dive. | 0:19:43 | 0:19:45 | |
Life on a submarine during the Second World War | 0:19:45 | 0:19:48 | |
was hard for the men on board | 0:19:48 | 0:19:50 | |
who had to be ready for action at any time. | 0:19:50 | 0:19:53 | |
You obviously survived the conflict, but did you ever have... | 0:19:53 | 0:19:56 | |
'Two men who remember it well | 0:19:56 | 0:19:58 | |
'are Cyril Sothcott and Captain Michael Crawford.' | 0:19:58 | 0:20:02 | |
In 1941, aged 20, Cyril joined the 9th Flotilla, based in Dundee. | 0:20:03 | 0:20:10 | |
When war broke out, Michael was then a sub-lieutenant | 0:20:13 | 0:20:17 | |
but by 1942, aged only 25, he took command of HMS Unseen, | 0:20:17 | 0:20:23 | |
operating out of Malta in the Mediterranean. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:27 | |
The most frightening experience I had was being depth charged off Toulon. | 0:20:27 | 0:20:33 | |
Our Q tank, which was the quick diving tank, flooded | 0:20:36 | 0:20:42 | |
and we started plummeting down. | 0:20:42 | 0:20:45 | |
At more than you wanted to do go. | 0:20:45 | 0:20:47 | |
Much more, in fact we nearly went to double the safe diving depth | 0:20:47 | 0:20:52 | |
so it was very frightening. | 0:20:52 | 0:20:54 | |
One or two close encounters with... | 0:20:54 | 0:20:58 | |
mine cables slapping down the side of the ship. | 0:20:58 | 0:21:03 | |
You're just hoping that the cable won't snag on anything | 0:21:03 | 0:21:08 | |
and pull the mine down on top of you, | 0:21:08 | 0:21:12 | |
but it does tend to concentrate the mind! | 0:21:12 | 0:21:15 | |
Our losses were very heavy. | 0:21:17 | 0:21:19 | |
You never thought about it but that was the case. | 0:21:21 | 0:21:25 | |
Having watched dozens of submarine movies, | 0:21:32 | 0:21:34 | |
the question which continues to haunt me, | 0:21:34 | 0:21:37 | |
and now I feel it more acutely | 0:21:37 | 0:21:39 | |
having just met these brave, former submariners, | 0:21:39 | 0:21:42 | |
is could I do what they've done? | 0:21:42 | 0:21:45 | |
I'd like to think that I could, but I'm really not sure. | 0:21:45 | 0:21:50 | |
I'm going to read a quote from Winston Churchill. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:52 | |
I'll read it to make sure I get it just right. | 0:21:52 | 0:21:56 | |
"Of all the branches of men in the Forces, there is none | 0:21:56 | 0:22:00 | |
"which shows more devotion and faces grimmer perils than the submariner. | 0:22:00 | 0:22:04 | |
"Great deeds are done in the air and on the land. | 0:22:04 | 0:22:08 | |
"Nevertheless, nothing surpasses your exploits." | 0:22:08 | 0:22:12 | |
I wouldn't disagree with that, | 0:22:12 | 0:22:15 | |
not for a second. | 0:22:15 | 0:22:17 | |
Leaving harbour. | 0:22:17 | 0:22:19 | |
From 1950 to 1959 there were more naval war films made | 0:22:25 | 0:22:31 | |
than any other branch of the military, | 0:22:31 | 0:22:33 | |
and more submarine movies than at any other time, | 0:22:33 | 0:22:37 | |
which kept John Mills very busy! | 0:22:37 | 0:22:39 | |
In Britain, this post-war period proved to be a difficult time | 0:22:39 | 0:22:44 | |
as the nation was struggling to deal with the debt | 0:22:44 | 0:22:46 | |
of the Second World War that was crippling the economy. | 0:22:46 | 0:22:49 | |
These nostalgic films reminded audiences how great Britain once was | 0:22:49 | 0:22:55 | |
when Britannia ruled the waves. | 0:22:55 | 0:22:57 | |
There are a couple of submarine pictures from this period | 0:23:03 | 0:23:06 | |
which are reliving moments of heroism, | 0:23:06 | 0:23:08 | |
particularly heroism against all odds, | 0:23:08 | 0:23:11 | |
when the outcome was not so very wonderful. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:13 | |
For instance, a film like Above Us The Waves, | 0:23:13 | 0:23:16 | |
which I remember seeing in the cinema, | 0:23:16 | 0:23:18 | |
left a tremendous impression on me. | 0:23:18 | 0:23:21 | |
Hold it. Hold it. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:26 | |
Above Us The Waves stars...John Mills, as the skipper once again | 0:23:26 | 0:23:30 | |
but this time in a film based on the true story of a World War II attack | 0:23:30 | 0:23:35 | |
on the German ship the Tirpitz. | 0:23:35 | 0:23:36 | |
Mills is captain of an X Craft, | 0:23:36 | 0:23:39 | |
otherwise known as a midget submarine. | 0:23:39 | 0:23:42 | |
These tiny subs were able to creep under enemy torpedo nets | 0:23:42 | 0:23:46 | |
to carry out highly dangerous missions. | 0:23:46 | 0:23:49 | |
-Blimey, we're through. -Do you know, I believe we are. | 0:23:49 | 0:23:57 | |
-Periscope depths. -Periscope depths, sir. | 0:23:58 | 0:24:01 | |
There was room for only four men on board | 0:24:03 | 0:24:05 | |
and so the feeling of claustrophobia was intense. | 0:24:05 | 0:24:09 | |
This is HMS X24, the only remaining X-craft to have seen service | 0:24:15 | 0:24:21 | |
in World War II. | 0:24:21 | 0:24:24 | |
At just over 50 feet long and with a beam of 5'9", | 0:24:24 | 0:24:28 | |
in its day it was capable of diving to depths of 300 feet. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:33 | |
Midget submarines of this class received no less than four VCs. | 0:24:33 | 0:24:38 | |
You can see how tight a space it is | 0:24:47 | 0:24:49 | |
and how claustrophobic it would have been for the four crew members. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:53 | |
In fact they nicknamed them madmen. | 0:24:53 | 0:24:56 | |
It really isn't very nice in here. | 0:24:59 | 0:25:01 | |
In fact, can I get out now? | 0:25:01 | 0:25:04 | |
Get ready to bail out. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:08 | |
Above Us The Waves really does seem to capture the risks and the heroism | 0:25:09 | 0:25:14 | |
of the submariner during the Second World War, | 0:25:14 | 0:25:17 | |
and John Mills epitomised the British spirit | 0:25:17 | 0:25:20 | |
of grace under pressure. | 0:25:20 | 0:25:22 | |
But in America, it was a rather different story. | 0:25:22 | 0:25:27 | |
Steady, chief! | 0:25:31 | 0:25:33 | |
The role of the US submarine captain | 0:25:33 | 0:25:35 | |
was one of rugged masculinity and prowess. | 0:25:35 | 0:25:39 | |
Who better to lead a crew into battle | 0:25:39 | 0:25:41 | |
than the Duke himself, John Wayne? | 0:25:41 | 0:25:44 | |
Even though it's only a small plastic boat in a tank! | 0:25:44 | 0:25:48 | |
For Hollywood filmmakers, the submarine became the perfect setting | 0:25:49 | 0:25:54 | |
for an all-out action-packed, star-studded | 0:25:54 | 0:25:58 | |
naval drama where the skipper is king. | 0:25:58 | 0:26:02 | |
Put air pressure in that compartment. | 0:26:02 | 0:26:04 | |
Put air pressure in that compartment. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:05 | |
I think for quite a number of years | 0:26:05 | 0:26:08 | |
doing one of those war action movies and on a submarine was regarded | 0:26:08 | 0:26:11 | |
as no bad thing because you could be a kind of tough guy hero | 0:26:11 | 0:26:17 | |
when men were men, in a confined space. | 0:26:17 | 0:26:20 | |
You're in charge, you're god of this universe, and wasn't it fantastic? | 0:26:20 | 0:26:25 | |
And of course a lot of those actors gave very powerful performances. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:31 | |
One film that featured not one but two Hollywood alpha males, | 0:26:31 | 0:26:36 | |
Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster, | 0:26:36 | 0:26:38 | |
was the 1958 classic, Run Silent Run Deep. | 0:26:38 | 0:26:43 | |
Right full rudder, come right to course 030. | 0:26:43 | 0:26:46 | |
'Open outer doors of tubes one and two.' | 0:26:46 | 0:26:48 | |
Open outer doors of tubes one and two. | 0:26:48 | 0:26:50 | |
Deep in the pacific, Clark Gable plays a submarine commander | 0:26:50 | 0:26:53 | |
on a revenge mission to sink a Japanese destroyer, The Momo. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:57 | |
He is accompanied by Burt Lancaster as his first officer. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:01 | |
Angle on the bow now, starboard 70. | 0:27:01 | 0:27:04 | |
Complete a spread, one right, one left. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:06 | |
Everything set, sir. | 0:27:08 | 0:27:10 | |
But Gable's authoritarian style of command | 0:27:10 | 0:27:13 | |
clashes with Lancaster's more democratic approach | 0:27:13 | 0:27:17 | |
and the film cements what was to become a staple of the genre - | 0:27:17 | 0:27:21 | |
the head-to-head power struggle. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:24 | |
We have operational orders. They are explicit. | 0:27:24 | 0:27:26 | |
The crew that expects the captain to follow them. | 0:27:26 | 0:27:29 | |
You know as well as I do that a captain can redefine orders | 0:27:29 | 0:27:32 | |
if he feels he has an advantage. | 0:27:32 | 0:27:33 | |
-What advantage? -You just named it, a bow shot. | 0:27:33 | 0:27:36 | |
We proved we could do it with the Momo, we can do it again. | 0:27:36 | 0:27:39 | |
This pointed to wider concerns about the best style of leadership | 0:27:39 | 0:27:44 | |
to deal with the new enemy in 1950s America - communism. | 0:27:44 | 0:27:50 | |
Although it's ostensibly about the Second World War, | 0:27:50 | 0:27:53 | |
there's a lot being dramatised which is about... | 0:27:53 | 0:27:56 | |
you know, Eisenhower's America and how it faces up | 0:27:56 | 0:27:59 | |
to the communist threat. | 0:27:59 | 0:28:01 | |
Destroyer's angle at the bow now zero. Bearing? | 0:28:01 | 0:28:04 | |
Harold Hecht, who was the producer, had been one of the stool pigeons | 0:28:04 | 0:28:10 | |
at the House of Un-American Activities Committee. | 0:28:10 | 0:28:12 | |
He'd named names, only 18 months before. | 0:28:12 | 0:28:15 | |
And the film can definitely be interpreted as, | 0:28:17 | 0:28:21 | |
what's the best style of leadership for taking on the Commies? | 0:28:21 | 0:28:24 | |
The democratic style, represented by Lancaster, | 0:28:24 | 0:28:27 | |
the authoritarian style, represented by Gable. | 0:28:27 | 0:28:29 | |
We're going to have to be very ingenious and nimble on our feet | 0:28:29 | 0:28:34 | |
to cope with the Commies. | 0:28:34 | 0:28:36 | |
And that comes displaced into this, | 0:28:36 | 0:28:39 | |
the 32-second bow torpedo followed by a quick dive. | 0:28:39 | 0:28:42 | |
If you had any questions about the drills, | 0:28:42 | 0:28:44 | |
I think you'll have them answered now. | 0:28:44 | 0:28:46 | |
We're taking on the Momo. Right standard rudder. | 0:28:46 | 0:28:50 | |
Come right to course 045. | 0:28:50 | 0:28:53 | |
Down their throats. It's a bow shot. | 0:28:53 | 0:28:55 | |
It's a clever manoeuvre that Clarke Gable's worked out | 0:28:55 | 0:28:59 | |
to outwit a Japanese destroyer. | 0:28:59 | 0:29:01 | |
-Fire three. -Fire Three. Three fired, sir. | 0:29:01 | 0:29:05 | |
You get less films about the Nazis in the fifties at that time, | 0:29:05 | 0:29:09 | |
but the Japs were still the bad guys and that was OK. | 0:29:09 | 0:29:12 | |
So, there's a lot of sort of gung ho kind of chauvinism. | 0:29:12 | 0:29:15 | |
-We got him! -32 seconds! | 0:29:19 | 0:29:22 | |
At the end of the '50s came one last World War II submarine movie | 0:29:30 | 0:29:34 | |
that would take on both the Japanese and gung ho chauvinism, | 0:29:34 | 0:29:39 | |
bringing the red-blooded crew of a US submarine to their knees. | 0:29:39 | 0:29:44 | |
-Good morning. -Morning, sir. | 0:29:44 | 0:29:46 | |
In Operation Petticoat, Cary Grant and Tony Curtis would discover | 0:29:46 | 0:29:50 | |
exactly how chaotic things can get when you let real women on board... | 0:29:50 | 0:29:56 | |
Good night, Marilyn. | 0:29:56 | 0:29:58 | |
As the crew of USS Sea Tiger sets off on patrol in the Pacific | 0:30:04 | 0:30:08 | |
they come upon a group of survivors | 0:30:08 | 0:30:10 | |
who have been stranded on a remote island. | 0:30:10 | 0:30:13 | |
-Women! -Wow! | 0:30:13 | 0:30:16 | |
The captain is forced to do the gentlemanly thing. | 0:30:16 | 0:30:20 | |
Am I going down right? | 0:30:20 | 0:30:22 | |
-Sorry? -Is she going down right? | 0:30:22 | 0:30:24 | |
-She sure is! -Good morning. | 0:30:25 | 0:30:27 | |
Though set in the Second World War, | 0:30:27 | 0:30:29 | |
the usual conventions of the submarine movie | 0:30:29 | 0:30:33 | |
are blown completely out of the water | 0:30:33 | 0:30:34 | |
by the arrival of the nurses on board. | 0:30:34 | 0:30:36 | |
And the submarine, far from being a confined, claustrophobic space | 0:30:36 | 0:30:41 | |
is transformed into a hotbed of sexual innuendo and excitement. | 0:30:41 | 0:30:47 | |
Operation Petticoat is very much of its moment. | 0:30:47 | 0:30:50 | |
It's very much a 1950s film about men being in charge | 0:30:50 | 0:30:54 | |
except when they're slightly befuddled by sex. | 0:30:54 | 0:30:58 | |
-Excuse me. -Yeah. | 0:30:58 | 0:31:00 | |
It's very '50s because it's absolutely fixated on breasts. | 0:31:00 | 0:31:04 | |
Which is a very 1950s Hollywood thing. | 0:31:04 | 0:31:06 | |
Think about Marilyn Munro, Eva Gardner. | 0:31:06 | 0:31:08 | |
The Japanese have nothing like this. | 0:31:08 | 0:31:10 | |
'I always think of the '50s as the era in which' | 0:31:10 | 0:31:12 | |
America regressed into infancy and developed a breast fixation. | 0:31:12 | 0:31:16 | |
If anybody ever asks you what you're fighting for, there's your answer. | 0:31:16 | 0:31:21 | |
The final feminisation of the boat occurs when poor, emasculated | 0:31:23 | 0:31:30 | |
USS Sea Tiger, due to a lack of supplies, is painted not regulation | 0:31:30 | 0:31:35 | |
battleship grey, but... | 0:31:35 | 0:31:38 | |
Pink. | 0:31:38 | 0:31:40 | |
25 years I've been in the navy. I ain't never seen nothing like this. | 0:31:40 | 0:31:45 | |
As the concerns of war faded, | 0:31:48 | 0:31:50 | |
the submarine movie withdrew from the front line | 0:31:50 | 0:31:53 | |
and re-focussed on the realms of fantasy and adventure. | 0:31:53 | 0:31:58 | |
It would take on more forward-looking aspects | 0:31:58 | 0:32:00 | |
and these colourful creations would occasionally conceal powerful ideas, | 0:32:00 | 0:32:05 | |
sometimes from the most unlikely film makers. | 0:32:05 | 0:32:09 | |
In 1954, more than 80 years after Jules Verne first published | 0:32:14 | 0:32:18 | |
his classic undersea tale of the Nautilus submarine, | 0:32:18 | 0:32:22 | |
Walt Disney decided to revisit this story | 0:32:22 | 0:32:24 | |
that had so inspired the early filmmakers. | 0:32:24 | 0:32:27 | |
Only this time, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea would be Walt's first | 0:32:27 | 0:32:32 | |
cinemascope live action feature film, shot in glorious Technicolor. | 0:32:32 | 0:32:37 | |
The motion picture screen explodes with unprecedented power | 0:32:37 | 0:32:41 | |
as the two masters of imagination, Jules Verne and Walt Disney, | 0:32:41 | 0:32:46 | |
join to bring you a shattering new experience in entertainment. | 0:32:46 | 0:32:50 | |
All stations ready, prepare for diving. | 0:32:52 | 0:32:55 | |
It's a natural conjunction. | 0:32:55 | 0:32:57 | |
Disney was aware that submarine movies were becoming very popular. | 0:32:57 | 0:33:01 | |
We're right in the heart of the peak production period | 0:33:01 | 0:33:05 | |
from the mid '40s to the late '50s of submarine movies. | 0:33:05 | 0:33:08 | |
Don't leave us! Help! Help! | 0:33:08 | 0:33:14 | |
After their ship is sunk the professor and his crew come across | 0:33:14 | 0:33:17 | |
a strange submarine-like vessel and decide to investigate. | 0:33:17 | 0:33:22 | |
Is anyone down there? | 0:33:22 | 0:33:25 | |
When Captain Nemo, played by James Mason, | 0:33:29 | 0:33:33 | |
returns to find the intruders on board the Nautilus, | 0:33:33 | 0:33:36 | |
he is less than happy. | 0:33:36 | 0:33:38 | |
James Mason as Captain Nemo is brilliant. | 0:33:38 | 0:33:42 | |
Dark, saturnine, seriously believable as a man | 0:33:42 | 0:33:45 | |
who has a grudge against humanity. | 0:33:45 | 0:33:48 | |
When he sits down and plays at the organ, | 0:33:48 | 0:33:50 | |
that is one of the great moments when you really do believe | 0:33:50 | 0:33:53 | |
this kind of fantasy world that he's built for himself under sea. | 0:33:53 | 0:33:58 | |
Disney, of course, was very interested in the new technologies | 0:34:01 | 0:34:05 | |
that were being developed for, well, military purposes. | 0:34:05 | 0:34:07 | |
And yes, he was aware of the looming nuclear standoff. | 0:34:07 | 0:34:13 | |
And it's very natural if you're making an up-to-date version | 0:34:13 | 0:34:16 | |
of the Verne novel that you will incorporate nuclear power | 0:34:16 | 0:34:19 | |
because the source of the Nautilus' power in Jules Verne is mysterious. | 0:34:19 | 0:34:24 | |
Now the mystery is solved. It's nuclear. | 0:34:25 | 0:34:28 | |
It had its roots in the Victorian gothic | 0:34:34 | 0:34:36 | |
but it's actually coming up into the present. | 0:34:36 | 0:34:38 | |
The end when Nemo decides to self destruct, | 0:34:45 | 0:34:49 | |
you not only get a mushroom cloud | 0:34:49 | 0:34:52 | |
but you get a voice over from James Mason saying, | 0:34:52 | 0:34:55 | |
"One day the world will be ready for this. In God's good time." | 0:34:55 | 0:34:59 | |
This is hope for the future. | 0:35:00 | 0:35:04 | |
When the world is ready for a new and better life, | 0:35:04 | 0:35:08 | |
all this will some day come to pass, | 0:35:08 | 0:35:12 | |
in God's good time. | 0:35:12 | 0:35:14 | |
It's no coincidence that the same year | 0:35:21 | 0:35:23 | |
that 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea was released, | 0:35:23 | 0:35:26 | |
the US Navy launched its first ever atomic-powered submarine - | 0:35:26 | 0:35:30 | |
the USS Nautilus. | 0:35:30 | 0:35:32 | |
And by 1957 it had achieved 20,000 leagues... | 0:35:32 | 0:35:36 | |
that's distance, not depth, | 0:35:36 | 0:35:39 | |
thus matching Jules Verne's fictional vessel. | 0:35:39 | 0:35:43 | |
More than that though, it became apparent that Disney | 0:35:43 | 0:35:46 | |
was helping to promote a positive role for the atom in general | 0:35:46 | 0:35:49 | |
and atomic submarines in particular. | 0:35:49 | 0:35:53 | |
Take a look at this for an early Disneyland ride. | 0:35:53 | 0:35:58 | |
And now for the ride that I nominate as the most unusual | 0:35:58 | 0:36:02 | |
and completely fascinating that I have ever enjoyed. | 0:36:02 | 0:36:05 | |
The General Dynamic Corporation which had built the USS Nautilus, | 0:36:05 | 0:36:10 | |
built for Walt Disney the atomic submarine ride | 0:36:10 | 0:36:13 | |
for Disneyworld in Anaheim, California. | 0:36:13 | 0:36:15 | |
So I mean there was a complete connection between | 0:36:17 | 0:36:20 | |
Disney making 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea '54, | 0:36:20 | 0:36:23 | |
and what was going on in the real world | 0:36:23 | 0:36:24 | |
with the development of nuclear submarine technology. | 0:36:24 | 0:36:27 | |
It's quite an extraordinary moment. | 0:36:27 | 0:36:29 | |
Who would have thought that the man who brought us the Magic Kingdom | 0:36:29 | 0:36:33 | |
would treat the children of the 1950s | 0:36:33 | 0:36:35 | |
to a Disney ride on an atomic submarine? | 0:36:35 | 0:36:39 | |
With make-believe missiles, of course. | 0:36:39 | 0:36:42 | |
Furthermore, Disney produced, | 0:36:43 | 0:36:45 | |
with the US Navy and the General Dynamic Corporation, | 0:36:45 | 0:36:48 | |
a film called Our friend the Atom, | 0:36:48 | 0:36:51 | |
which predicted a bright, clean future where the atom | 0:36:51 | 0:36:54 | |
"..will truly become our friend". | 0:36:54 | 0:36:56 | |
I remember watching it at school. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:01 | |
Here's America and the use of the nuclear power | 0:37:01 | 0:37:04 | |
with an amazing sequence where they show | 0:37:04 | 0:37:07 | |
how a nuclear explosion occurs with the aid of hundreds of mousetraps. | 0:37:07 | 0:37:12 | |
Watch. | 0:37:12 | 0:37:13 | |
An atomic chain reaction works in exactly the same way. | 0:37:18 | 0:37:23 | |
Our Friend the Atom. In medicine, in hygiene, in energy, | 0:37:23 | 0:37:28 | |
in transportation, the atom is going to sort out all our problems. | 0:37:28 | 0:37:31 | |
And then, the atom can run our ships. | 0:37:31 | 0:37:36 | |
'Disney loved new technology, | 0:37:40 | 0:37:42 | |
'he loved American ingenuity, Yanky ingenuity.' | 0:37:42 | 0:37:45 | |
And of course, the atomic submarine already exists. | 0:37:45 | 0:37:50 | |
Like everyone else he was... the Sputnik goes up | 0:37:50 | 0:37:54 | |
and they're very, very paranoid that the Russians are getting | 0:37:54 | 0:37:57 | |
rather better at this than the Americans are. | 0:37:57 | 0:37:59 | |
So they redouble their efforts to show | 0:37:59 | 0:38:01 | |
how American ingenuity leads the world. | 0:38:01 | 0:38:03 | |
But not everyone shared Walt Disney's optimism. | 0:38:11 | 0:38:15 | |
The catastrophic events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki | 0:38:16 | 0:38:19 | |
were still in people's minds | 0:38:19 | 0:38:21 | |
and there was significant anxiety about the dangers of nuclear power. | 0:38:21 | 0:38:26 | |
These concerns were captured in the 1959 melodrama On The Beach, | 0:38:30 | 0:38:36 | |
based on the novel by Nevil Shute. | 0:38:36 | 0:38:39 | |
And our scientists disagree as to when radiation will reach Australia. | 0:38:39 | 0:38:43 | |
The atomic war has ended but the Prime Minister reports | 0:38:43 | 0:38:47 | |
no proof of survival of human life anywhere except here. | 0:38:47 | 0:38:51 | |
Any contacts topside? | 0:38:51 | 0:38:54 | |
'No contact, sir.' | 0:38:54 | 0:38:56 | |
An atomic explosion in the northern hemisphere | 0:38:56 | 0:39:00 | |
has wiped out all of humanity. | 0:39:00 | 0:39:02 | |
All that's left is a US Submarine. | 0:39:02 | 0:39:05 | |
The given is so gloomy, the only safe place in the world | 0:39:10 | 0:39:14 | |
is inside a metal tube and the moment you surface you've had it. | 0:39:14 | 0:39:17 | |
So you don't need the Japanese and the Nazis, | 0:39:17 | 0:39:20 | |
you just need to breath the air. | 0:39:20 | 0:39:22 | |
It's the last vessel that can explore the ruined world | 0:39:24 | 0:39:29 | |
that they have destroyed. | 0:39:29 | 0:39:31 | |
It's the last place that they can hide in. | 0:39:31 | 0:39:35 | |
It's the last place they can escape to before it's all over. | 0:39:35 | 0:39:40 | |
Up periscope. | 0:39:40 | 0:39:42 | |
When it's up periscope it's not to see a predator, | 0:39:44 | 0:39:47 | |
it's to see the real world. | 0:39:47 | 0:39:48 | |
It's information about civil life that they want | 0:39:48 | 0:39:51 | |
through the periscope rather than information about the enemy. | 0:39:51 | 0:39:55 | |
It's downhill all the way. It begins downhill and it gets worse | 0:40:01 | 0:40:04 | |
until, at the end, they all kill themselves. | 0:40:04 | 0:40:07 | |
'You cannot imagine a big-budget film with a star like Gregory Peck | 0:40:07 | 0:40:12 | |
'being made about that now.' | 0:40:12 | 0:40:14 | |
It gives an idea about the atmosphere of the time. | 0:40:14 | 0:40:17 | |
Although the nuclear threat still hovered | 0:40:22 | 0:40:24 | |
at the beginning of the '60s, it felt like things were looking up. | 0:40:24 | 0:40:28 | |
Space was now the place | 0:40:28 | 0:40:29 | |
and new frontiers were presenting themselves. | 0:40:29 | 0:40:32 | |
You're listening to the sound of a completely new screen experience. | 0:40:32 | 0:40:37 | |
A startling new kind of excitement. | 0:40:37 | 0:40:41 | |
20th Century-Fox plunges you | 0:40:41 | 0:40:43 | |
into the most incredible adventure that man could ever achieve. | 0:40:43 | 0:40:46 | |
With the Fantastic Voyage, | 0:40:54 | 0:40:56 | |
the submarine movie proved how adaptable it was. | 0:40:56 | 0:40:58 | |
The journey was not to the bottom of the sea | 0:40:58 | 0:41:00 | |
but to inner space, inside the human body itself. | 0:41:00 | 0:41:05 | |
Inject. | 0:41:05 | 0:41:07 | |
Wasn't so much that sinking feeling | 0:41:07 | 0:41:08 | |
as that shrinking feeling as a group of scientists were miniaturised | 0:41:08 | 0:41:12 | |
in order to enter the patient's bloodstream. | 0:41:12 | 0:41:15 | |
But this was back in 1966 and things were getting groovier, so obviously | 0:41:15 | 0:41:21 | |
one of the scientists had to be played by Raquel Welch. | 0:41:21 | 0:41:26 | |
Oh, yes! Take me down, doctor! | 0:41:26 | 0:41:29 | |
Phase 1, phase 1. | 0:41:29 | 0:41:32 | |
Scanner, computer, nine, five. | 0:41:34 | 0:41:36 | |
Dr Duvall? What could those be? | 0:41:43 | 0:41:47 | |
It's interesting to see when women come on board submarines | 0:41:50 | 0:41:53 | |
in the guise of scientists. | 0:41:53 | 0:41:55 | |
Raquel Welsh, pretty much a classic example of that. | 0:41:55 | 0:41:59 | |
The film spends about 30 seconds, you know, | 0:41:59 | 0:42:01 | |
informing us that she's very, very smart | 0:42:01 | 0:42:03 | |
and then she never does anything intelligent again. | 0:42:03 | 0:42:06 | |
She's there in a very tight-fitting suit so we can admire her figure. | 0:42:06 | 0:42:11 | |
But what the Fantastic Voyage lacked in its commitment to women's lib, | 0:42:11 | 0:42:15 | |
it more that made up for in scientific innovation. | 0:42:15 | 0:42:19 | |
It was the swinging '60s but it was also that thing where | 0:42:21 | 0:42:23 | |
technology was moving really rapidly | 0:42:23 | 0:42:26 | |
and the submarine was still very much at the forefront of technology. | 0:42:26 | 0:42:31 | |
It had moved from being this quite crude weapon | 0:42:31 | 0:42:36 | |
that was there to blow up ships in the great films of the '40s and '50s, | 0:42:36 | 0:42:40 | |
and suddenly it was a pioneering scientific exploration vessel, | 0:42:40 | 0:42:45 | |
exploring things that other people couldn't explore. | 0:42:45 | 0:42:50 | |
The film in 1966 is anticipating being able to insert humans | 0:42:52 | 0:42:57 | |
but also technology into the bloodstream and the brain | 0:42:57 | 0:43:00 | |
and do operations with lasers on the brain, etc. | 0:43:00 | 0:43:03 | |
It's very prescient in that sense | 0:43:03 | 0:43:05 | |
and anticipates a lot of things that would then come true. | 0:43:05 | 0:43:09 | |
The submarine was at the cutting edge of innovation and technology. | 0:43:09 | 0:43:13 | |
And where that cutting-edge technology | 0:43:18 | 0:43:20 | |
intersects with cold war espionage, | 0:43:20 | 0:43:23 | |
you will find only one man, James Bond. | 0:43:23 | 0:43:28 | |
Surface. Full ahead. | 0:43:28 | 0:43:33 | |
In The Spy Who Loved Me, | 0:43:33 | 0:43:34 | |
a British Polaris submarine has been captured. | 0:43:34 | 0:43:37 | |
Oh, my God. | 0:43:37 | 0:43:38 | |
For Bond, it's a race against time as he tries to locate the submarine | 0:43:38 | 0:43:42 | |
before its nuclear warheads are fired. | 0:43:42 | 0:43:44 | |
Can you swim? | 0:43:47 | 0:43:49 | |
The most audacious scene in the film comes as Bond's Lotus Esprit | 0:44:02 | 0:44:06 | |
morphs into...a midget submarine. | 0:44:06 | 0:44:11 | |
It's time we said goodbye to an uninvited guest. | 0:44:17 | 0:44:20 | |
Brace yourself. | 0:44:30 | 0:44:31 | |
Of course, being 1977, the action just has to be played out | 0:44:31 | 0:44:36 | |
to an exceedingly cheesy disco score. | 0:44:36 | 0:44:39 | |
Look. | 0:44:39 | 0:44:40 | |
Midget submarines don't get more bling than this. Stunning. | 0:44:41 | 0:44:46 | |
Submarine movies found themselves rather becalmed in the late '70s, | 0:44:51 | 0:44:56 | |
with only the occasional, admittedly spectacular, foray onscreen. | 0:44:56 | 0:45:01 | |
The Spy Who Loved Me delivered the required subaquatic thrills | 0:45:01 | 0:45:04 | |
and all without breaking a sweat or chipping its nail varnish. | 0:45:04 | 0:45:10 | |
EXPLOSION | 0:45:15 | 0:45:17 | |
But just when you thought the submarine film | 0:45:20 | 0:45:23 | |
had all gone a bit silly, from out of nowhere | 0:45:23 | 0:45:26 | |
a film surfaced that would become | 0:45:26 | 0:45:28 | |
the towering achievement of the genre. | 0:45:28 | 0:45:31 | |
This is the naval base of La Pallice, in La Rochelle | 0:45:41 | 0:45:45 | |
on the French Atlantic coast. | 0:45:45 | 0:45:47 | |
It was from these brutal concrete submarine pens | 0:45:47 | 0:45:51 | |
that the German U-Boats departed. | 0:45:51 | 0:45:54 | |
It is also the setting for the opening of one of the finest, | 0:45:54 | 0:45:57 | |
most realistic submarine films. | 0:45:57 | 0:45:59 | |
At just under 5 hours running time, | 0:45:59 | 0:46:02 | |
director Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boat is a brilliant study | 0:46:02 | 0:46:06 | |
of the terrifying psychological effects of waging war | 0:46:06 | 0:46:10 | |
from a cramped, underwater, metal prison. | 0:46:10 | 0:46:13 | |
As is often the case, though, the story starts on a sunny day | 0:46:13 | 0:46:17 | |
with dreams of heroism. | 0:46:17 | 0:46:18 | |
One of the most expensive German films ever made, | 0:46:24 | 0:46:27 | |
Das Boat was released at a time when Germany | 0:46:27 | 0:46:29 | |
was finally ready to dramatise its role in the second world war. | 0:46:29 | 0:46:33 | |
The story follows the crew of a U-boat | 0:46:39 | 0:46:41 | |
as they set off on patrol in the Atlantic | 0:46:41 | 0:46:43 | |
in the early years of the war | 0:46:43 | 0:46:45 | |
and is told from the point of view of Lt Werner, a war correspondent. | 0:46:45 | 0:46:50 | |
Lt Werner is our guide to both the fearful nature of life on board | 0:47:16 | 0:47:20 | |
and to the stoicism of its captain, played by Jurgen Prochnow. | 0:47:20 | 0:47:26 | |
Das Boot is one of the great contributions | 0:47:44 | 0:47:47 | |
to the celluloid history of war. | 0:47:47 | 0:47:49 | |
It's no two ways about it. | 0:47:49 | 0:47:52 | |
He's an action filmmaker, Wolfgang Peterson, | 0:47:52 | 0:47:55 | |
he wants to hit you in the chest, | 0:47:55 | 0:47:57 | |
he wants you to feel it there and Das Boat does that. | 0:47:57 | 0:48:00 | |
You live the experience with them, | 0:48:04 | 0:48:06 | |
because of the verisimilitude of the technology, | 0:48:06 | 0:48:09 | |
the sound, the look, the claustrophobia. | 0:48:09 | 0:48:11 | |
The details of the engineering. | 0:48:11 | 0:48:13 | |
I think it's a remarkable film, | 0:48:20 | 0:48:22 | |
I think it's one of the best submarine films ever made, actually. | 0:48:22 | 0:48:25 | |
The extraordinary thing about war films generally | 0:48:36 | 0:48:38 | |
is that the focus is on the action. | 0:48:38 | 0:48:40 | |
They're not described as action films for no reason. | 0:48:40 | 0:48:43 | |
And I think if you ever talk to any serving soldiers | 0:48:43 | 0:48:47 | |
the thing the always stress isn't the action itself | 0:48:47 | 0:48:50 | |
but it's the long gaps between the action. | 0:48:50 | 0:48:53 | |
Long gaps in which there is time for self-reflection, | 0:48:53 | 0:48:57 | |
there is time for fear to develop, | 0:48:57 | 0:48:59 | |
there is time to get anxious about what's going to happen next | 0:48:59 | 0:49:01 | |
and how they're going to respond to it. | 0:49:01 | 0:49:03 | |
I think what's exciting about Das Boat | 0:49:03 | 0:49:06 | |
is that it very much puts that psychological perspective | 0:49:06 | 0:49:10 | |
at the forefront of the film, | 0:49:10 | 0:49:11 | |
which is you understand something about their fears and anxieties | 0:49:11 | 0:49:15 | |
and anything that does happen in the film happens with that | 0:49:15 | 0:49:18 | |
as the obvious psychological backdrop. | 0:49:18 | 0:49:21 | |
The crew face a constant barrage of physical and psychological pressure | 0:49:24 | 0:49:29 | |
throughout the patrol. | 0:49:29 | 0:49:30 | |
But nothing pushes them further to the edge than when, | 0:49:30 | 0:49:33 | |
to avoid enemy fire, | 0:49:33 | 0:49:36 | |
they are forced to take the boat to a depth way beyond its limit. | 0:49:36 | 0:49:40 | |
When they're stuck in the depths and you hear the pressure on the metal | 0:49:52 | 0:49:58 | |
and the bolts start unscrewing and everyone feels, | 0:49:58 | 0:50:01 | |
"My God, this machine is about to implode with us all stuck inside it." | 0:50:01 | 0:50:05 | |
No-one had ever done that before. Submarines had got stuck, | 0:50:16 | 0:50:19 | |
but you'd never quite seen the engineering effect of that. | 0:50:19 | 0:50:23 | |
Very frightening. | 0:50:25 | 0:50:27 | |
I even dreamt about it after I saw the film. | 0:50:28 | 0:50:31 | |
It got to me that scene. What would it be like to be in that situation? | 0:50:31 | 0:50:35 | |
When you can do absolutely nothing about it and you can see your | 0:50:35 | 0:50:39 | |
environment implode around you very slowly as the pressure builds up. | 0:50:39 | 0:50:43 | |
Yes, I think that was very effective. | 0:50:43 | 0:50:44 | |
We like to watch the character losing it because, in some sense, | 0:50:55 | 0:50:58 | |
they represent us. | 0:50:58 | 0:50:59 | |
We know, I know that if I was in that situation I would be that character. | 0:50:59 | 0:51:02 | |
And what's interesting, from a psychology point of view, | 0:51:02 | 0:51:05 | |
is that fear is a very contagious emotion. | 0:51:05 | 0:51:08 | |
Human social groups evolve successfully because | 0:51:08 | 0:51:10 | |
if one person felt fear there was usually a good reason for it | 0:51:10 | 0:51:13 | |
so we had to pick up on that and work out where the threat was. | 0:51:13 | 0:51:16 | |
In some sense what's wonderful to watch is that if someone | 0:51:24 | 0:51:27 | |
shows extreme fear how does everyone else react? | 0:51:27 | 0:51:30 | |
That's the beauty of the film, which is, you feel sympathy for | 0:51:34 | 0:51:37 | |
these people because this is not part of the great Third Reich. | 0:51:37 | 0:51:40 | |
This is not part of the, you know, the blitzkrieg across Europe. | 0:51:40 | 0:51:45 | |
This is human beings, like yourself, very vulnerable. | 0:51:45 | 0:51:49 | |
HE SHOUTS OUT | 0:51:49 | 0:51:51 | |
It must have seemed pretty risky, you know, | 0:52:05 | 0:52:08 | |
was the public ready to sympathise, as you have to do, really, | 0:52:08 | 0:52:12 | |
with German submariners who are actually kind of, you know, | 0:52:12 | 0:52:15 | |
cutting up convoys that are coming from America to Britain. | 0:52:15 | 0:52:20 | |
As it turned out they were. | 0:52:20 | 0:52:22 | |
You've got a very conscious attempt to exorcise the Second World War. | 0:52:31 | 0:52:36 | |
Germany was ready to make films about the Nazis in 1981. | 0:52:36 | 0:52:39 | |
It had taken a very very long time. | 0:52:39 | 0:52:42 | |
Hollywood had been making films about the Nazis, | 0:52:42 | 0:52:44 | |
Britain had been making films about the Nazis. | 0:52:44 | 0:52:46 | |
French had been making films, but the Germans had not | 0:52:46 | 0:52:49 | |
and suddenly, they found a way of doing it. | 0:52:49 | 0:52:52 | |
Which is maverick people | 0:52:52 | 0:52:55 | |
who feel a long way away from Berlin. | 0:52:55 | 0:52:58 | |
And that's what Das Boat does. | 0:52:58 | 0:52:59 | |
It was director Wolfgang Petersen's aim to take cinema audiences, | 0:53:12 | 0:53:16 | |
as he put it, on a journey to the edge of their minds. | 0:53:16 | 0:53:21 | |
For me, no other submarine film before or since Das Boat | 0:53:21 | 0:53:26 | |
has been able to give us quite such a brilliantly realistic | 0:53:26 | 0:53:29 | |
and visceral cinematic experience. | 0:53:29 | 0:53:33 | |
At the end of the '80s, the Berlin Wall came down | 0:53:40 | 0:53:44 | |
and the Soviet Union's power began to crumble. | 0:53:44 | 0:53:47 | |
Britain and the US lost their naval enemy. | 0:53:47 | 0:53:52 | |
Despite the success of blockbusters like The Hunt For Red October, | 0:53:52 | 0:53:56 | |
the days of the cat-and-mouse cold war movie were now numbered. | 0:53:56 | 0:54:02 | |
Film makers had to find a new focus for the submarine film. | 0:54:02 | 0:54:06 | |
It is turbulence. We're in a quake. | 0:54:07 | 0:54:10 | |
-Help. All stop. -Oh, my God. | 0:54:10 | 0:54:12 | |
One director in particular showed the way | 0:54:12 | 0:54:15 | |
as he created a curious cinematic hybrid, | 0:54:15 | 0:54:18 | |
fusing the submarine to elements of science fiction | 0:54:18 | 0:54:22 | |
and state-of-the-art CGI. | 0:54:22 | 0:54:25 | |
In The Abyss the technical wizardry of director James Cameron | 0:54:25 | 0:54:29 | |
rebooted the genre. | 0:54:29 | 0:54:32 | |
All right, just continue forward and along the hull. | 0:54:34 | 0:54:37 | |
The film is about a group of scientists on a mission | 0:54:37 | 0:54:41 | |
to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a US submarine | 0:54:41 | 0:54:45 | |
and the search for survivors. | 0:54:45 | 0:54:47 | |
In the process of trying to mount the rescue, things start to go wrong | 0:54:47 | 0:54:52 | |
and the scientists discover that they are not alone. | 0:54:52 | 0:54:55 | |
The Abyss is a sort of submarine movie. | 0:55:07 | 0:55:10 | |
What Cameron did in 1989 was he reached back | 0:55:10 | 0:55:13 | |
to the imaginative space that the submarine movie and TV series | 0:55:13 | 0:55:19 | |
of the 1960s gave and said, | 0:55:19 | 0:55:22 | |
"Actually, it's not necessarily up there | 0:55:22 | 0:55:25 | |
"where the imaginative space is, | 0:55:25 | 0:55:27 | |
"it's not necessarily in outer space, maybe it is in inner space | 0:55:27 | 0:55:32 | |
"or in sea space." | 0:55:32 | 0:55:33 | |
It was at the absolute limit of what CGI could do at that time. | 0:55:37 | 0:55:43 | |
It was a very expensive and very brave film for 1989. | 0:55:45 | 0:55:49 | |
It was really quite out of kilter, this sort of hybrid | 0:55:49 | 0:55:54 | |
but it confirmed what a distinctive and original director he was, | 0:55:54 | 0:55:58 | |
at doing things with genres, | 0:55:58 | 0:55:59 | |
and with that technology and submarine and undersea technology | 0:55:59 | 0:56:03 | |
that other people just hadn't thought about. | 0:56:03 | 0:56:05 | |
The Abyss grossed 90 million and won an Oscar for visual effects. | 0:56:13 | 0:56:17 | |
But you have to wonder if it left the submarine movie in, | 0:56:17 | 0:56:21 | |
well, a bit of a trough. | 0:56:21 | 0:56:23 | |
Maybe underwater warfare just won't be the same | 0:56:23 | 0:56:26 | |
without those plucky Brits and maverick U-boat Kapitans. | 0:56:26 | 0:56:29 | |
The genre still has life in it | 0:56:30 | 0:56:32 | |
and you can still use modern technology to tell submarine stories, | 0:56:32 | 0:56:37 | |
but you can't tell them with the old bad guys, in the old stories, | 0:56:37 | 0:56:40 | |
in the old contexts with the old politics. | 0:56:40 | 0:56:43 | |
I think all that's gone. | 0:56:43 | 0:56:45 | |
If the history of cinema tells us anything it tells us that, you know, | 0:56:46 | 0:56:50 | |
there is really no such thing as a genre that absolutely dies. | 0:56:50 | 0:56:55 | |
After the bunch of films that we saw in the 1990s, | 0:56:55 | 0:56:58 | |
Crimson Tide, for instance, I think there's no reason | 0:56:58 | 0:57:00 | |
why there shouldn't be new submarine films. | 0:57:00 | 0:57:02 | |
There will be new filmmakers who feel that | 0:57:02 | 0:57:04 | |
they have a story they want to tell. | 0:57:04 | 0:57:06 | |
Personally, I would love to see the first submarine film in 3D. | 0:57:06 | 0:57:11 | |
It could be absolutely terrifying. | 0:57:11 | 0:57:15 | |
It's difficult to see how the submarine | 0:57:17 | 0:57:22 | |
or the sea and submarine genre can regain its space | 0:57:22 | 0:57:27 | |
unless somebody of that ilk, | 0:57:27 | 0:57:29 | |
unless it is Steven Spielberg or James Cameron just says, | 0:57:29 | 0:57:32 | |
"No, I am going to do that." | 0:57:32 | 0:57:34 | |
And if they decide to do that | 0:57:34 | 0:57:36 | |
everyone will be talking about it all over again, I think. | 0:57:36 | 0:57:39 | |
The sea remains one of our deepest metaphors | 0:57:44 | 0:57:47 | |
and the submarine is what takes us under the surface, to face what? | 0:57:47 | 0:57:52 | |
Our fears? The unknown? | 0:57:52 | 0:57:54 | |
The shortcomings and heroism of our fellow man? | 0:57:54 | 0:57:56 | |
For what seems physically very limiting, | 0:57:56 | 0:57:59 | |
the submarine is a great cauldron of emotion. | 0:57:59 | 0:58:03 | |
With one inescapable element that will always remain... | 0:58:05 | 0:58:09 | |
absolute, | 0:58:09 | 0:58:11 | |
primal, | 0:58:11 | 0:58:13 | |
raw fear. | 0:58:13 | 0:58:15 | |
I'm still gripped by submarine movies | 0:58:22 | 0:58:24 | |
and deeply respectful of real submariners. | 0:58:24 | 0:58:26 | |
But it would be dishonest of me not to confess that there are times | 0:58:26 | 0:58:30 | |
when this particular doggy paddler just wants to head for the shore... | 0:58:30 | 0:58:34 | |
and stay there. | 0:58:34 | 0:58:35 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:42 | 0:58:45 | |
E-mail [email protected] | 0:58:45 | 0:58:48 |