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Thursday, December 29, 2022

THE ENEMY BELOW (1957)

It’s the old game ‘Battleship,’ WWII Edition: mid-50s Hollywood-style in CinemaScope & Deluxe Color.  Our antagonists: recovering Navy Captain Robert Mitchum in command above on sea vs. Nazi-agnostic Curd Jürgens running the German sub below.  First Act exposition laid on plenty thick, motivation & personal history YA novel simplistic, but Dick Powell, in his penultimate directing gig (his best?*) turns out a handsome, pacey package.  (Note the improved grain from new ‘Scope’ film stock; especially noticeable on dissolves & optical printer work.)  Real ocean filming helps sell the action, but also makes the climax look tacky as we’re unprepared for models & studio trickery.  (Everything harder in color, too.)  But the game is well played by the two captains, with a sympathetic Jürgens even getting the last line.  (He also gets the larger head shot in our German film poster.)  You might even swallow the amount of philosophy & feelings these normally taciturn archetypes seem so eager to share with fellow officers.  (They open up more in two days than they would over two-years in a John Ford film.)  Plus, in rests between the well-staged action, you can imagine the ship's crew playing Seebees next week when they put on SOUTH PACIFIC.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Even better WWII Battleship strategy, with reversed roles above & below the water, in next year’s RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP/’58. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/03/run-silent-run-deep-1958.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Morphing from ‘30s  boy crooner to ‘40s tough guy P.I,, from ‘50s prestige character actor to directing seven feature films, Dick Powell kept finding new ways to resurface.  His next, again with Mitchum, now flying in Korea, THE HUNTERS/’58 (not seen here), is oddly little known.  Also his last as he died in ‘63, only 59.

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