Any other good Submarine movies??
I could only think of the following:
The Hunt for Red October
Crimson Tide
U571
Gray Lady Down
K19:the Widowmaker
Crash Dive
Run Silent, Run Deep
Can anybody think of anymore good ones??
Like many others, I recommend Das Boot, but with a twist:
Originally, Das Boot is a book based on real events!
During WW2, Marinekriegsberichter (Marine War Correspondent) Lothar-Günther Buchheim in fact did a stint on a sub. He survived the war and wrote an epic novel about his experience, much describing his impressions of life on board, and how many shades of grey the Atlantic sky could produce.
I recommend this book to all submarine fans.
Like some, I also recommend the 5-hour series over the cinema movie for these reasons:
-Much more footage and action. You simply get to know the crew better. You almost become a member of the crew, however, without ever getting wet ;0)
-The story is told through the correspondent (Buchheim impersonated as Leutnant Werner) with much narration from his diary, sharing his thoughts on life, the sea, and everything (Sorry, Douglas, I had to steal this one )
Also, I agree with some of the other posters: watch it in German with English subtitles; however good the actors are speaking English script-lines, it's *not* their mother tongue and thus they don't express their feelings/personality as well as in German.
As for me, well, I'm fluent in German, so I don't need dubbing or subtitles anyway, and I find German to be a beautiful language. And since I grew up with Danish TV, subtitling anything foreign, I'm used to original narration and thus loath dubbed movies. My point is, I find it extremely awkward watching a German WW2-soldier speaking other than... German. It's like watching John Wayne saying "Hände hoch!" in a western or Tom Hanks in "Apollo 13" saying "¡Houston, tenemos un problema!". It just doesn't work. So get the real McCoy.
bankvole
P.S. Hardcore cold war/submarine fans should get a copy of the book "Ubåt 137 - Tio dagar som skakade Sverige" from 1984 by Anders Jörle and Anders Hellberg (Danish: "Ubåd 137 - Ti dage som rystede Sverige"). It's about that Soviet diesel-sub that ran aground on Swedish Military territory in October 1981. After the ten-day incidence, the two reporters were left with all kinds of odds and ends that did not fit into the news reports, so they decided to string them into this book. There is a lot about how the Swedish military and civil service reacted and acted, a dramatization (for obvious reasons) of the sub entering Swedish waters and running aground, but also a lot of small, funny episodes, one including some very Swedish magazines that helped breaking the ice. The book also describes one hilarious episode: the C.O., the sampolit, and the navigator are interrogated ashore. When asked to draw the course backwards based on the boat's current position and the course corrections from the logbook, the navigator draws a line right through the Danish Island Bornholm (which has Granite for bedrock). Confronted with this absurdity, he just shrugs his shoulders.
I have this book in Danish translation. Apparently it only exists in Swedish and Danish. Only thing I could find in English is a risk analysis of the incident (pp. 52-95):
http://www.fhs.se/Documents/Externwebben/forskning/centrumbildningar/C rismart/Publikationer/Publikationsserier/VOLUME_2.PDF
Danish 2nd hand copies are sold for less than $10,-, so buy it, scan it with OCR, and enjoy it. It's really worth reading.
On YouTube there is a retrospective TV program where the sampolit visits Sweden and is interviewed about the incidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtBiKhVUaSw
The narration is in Swedish. Maybe you can find another video with subtitles or voice-over.
I was just 15 years old when all this happened, so I didn't understand all the international tension it caused at the time. But having read the book several times, I got a fair understanding of the cold war theatre in the Baltic Sea; a threesome between Nato, The Warsaw Pact, and neutral Sweden, I *really* would love see this book being put on the silver screen with some good actors. Clancy himself could not have come up with a better cold-war plot than this. If I had that kind of money, i'd secure the filming rights for it any day ;O)