Trailer
Plot summary
Before U-96 sails from La Rochelle in October 1941, Lieutenant Werner, a war correspondent, is driven to a French bordello where he meets officers and men of the boat, among them Thomsen, another captain, who gives a drunken speech mocking Adolf Hitler. The next morning the submarine puts to sea under Capt.-Lt. Lehmann-Willenbrock. Werner tours the vessel and finds hardened veterans cynical about the war while new recruits are mocked by the rest; the first watch officer's Nazi convictions and his careful grooming keep the only bathroom occupied. The captain, called Der Alte by his crew, is openly critical of how the war is handled. Days of boredom end when a convoy is reported and a British destroyer attacks with depth charges.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Das Boot (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The outdoor U-boat mock-up went missing one morning: an American filmmaker had rented it without telling the crew. That filmmaker was Steven Spielberg, shooting Raiders of the Lost Ark.
- The same full-size outdoor mock-up cracked in a storm and sank during production; it was recovered, patched up and used for the film's final scenes.
- Klaus Doldinger's lead melody outgrew the film: German rave group U96 made a techno remix in 1991, and the title theme became an international hit.
- Robert Redford was to play the U-boat captain when production first began in 1976; disagreements shelved the project, and a later Hollywood attempt wanted Paul Newman for the part.
- To make the actors look like real U-boat men, scenes were shot in sequence over a year: beards and hair grew naturally, skin paled and strain showed after months in a cramped, unhealthy atmosphere.
- The interior U-boat set sat five metres off the floor on a hydraulic mount that rocked and tilted it up to 45 degrees; Petersen boasted that "every screw" was an authentic World War II facsimile.
- Jost Vacano's hand-held Arriflex for the interior shots carried two gyroscopes for stability, a smaller alternative to the Steadicam, so it could be carried through the cramped mock-up.
- The film was shot "silent" because on-set dialogue would have been drowned out by the gyroscopes in the special camera, so even the German version was dubbed.
