I don’t think I’ve seen the movie, but I understand it’s not as good as the TV series it was cut down from.
An excellent movie, even if it is best known as the source of all those clips with the joke subtitles…
The 2017 movie? I’d have liked it better if it was made clear the chap with his son on the small boat was based on Charles Lightoller, given his unflattering portrayal in Cameron’s “Titanic”. In reality, Lightoller’s son Roger who accompanied his father was killed near the end of the war when Germans from the occupied Channel Isles made a daring raid on the French port of Granville. Lightoller had already lost his youngest son, Brian, a RAF bomber pilot, on the first night of the war over Wilhelmshaven, a port reconnoitered by Lightoller in early 1939 while ostensibly on a cruising holiday in his yacht. Brian had already taught his father about bombing techniques an the appropriate counters, which allowed to Lightoller to confound German aircraft attacking his boat on the way home. The connection would have been more obvious if the film had (been able to?) used Lightoller’s yacht “Sundowner” as it still survives. In contrast to the half-empty lifeboats some mistakenly criticise him for launching from the Titanic, Lightoller packed 127 evacuees into “Sundowner”, which was licensed to carry 21 persons…
this film was hacked into three pieces in 1985 with some extra footage added
and shown as a TV mini-series.
There was also a “directors cut” in 1997 (see Wikipedia link below for further variations)
Das TV-series, from 2018, 37 years later, a child born in 1981 could be acting in the role of a seasoned commander in the TV-series or even be the producer or director
Just finished watching the 5 hrs. full version in 1080p.
Subtitles were in Russian, but I still catched enough of the German U-Boot slang.
Have read the original book by Lothar-Günther Buchheim 25 years ago, alongside his just published back then book “Die Festung”.
Reading those 2 books was a great journey-across the Atlantic and through Western Europe- with often visits to my school-time German-Bulgarian glossary.
They did a remake??? FFS why? It’s not like the Americans b-gg-ring up British classics (The Italian Job, Get Carter) or even American classics. I saw the subtitled original six part TV series when it first aired on the BBC in 1984, and seem to recall a later TV review of a dubbed film version which was said to be inferior. (Actually, both the German and English versions were dubbed as background noise made the live dialogue unusable, fortunately most of the actors were bilingual.) As I recall this was quite some time before the 1997 re-release and the original TV series wasn’t repeated on TV until 1999.
Like “Das Boot”, “Die Festung” is part fiction, part autobiography, and extends the real-life relationship between Buchheim and U-29’s actual commander at the time of Buchheim’s voyage, Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock. This continues in “Der Abschied” in which (the ex- Leutnant) Werner travels to South Africa on the NS Otto Hahn, the last voyage for the ship and it’s Captain, “Der Alte”. In reality, Lehmann-Willenbrock was the Otto Hahn’s first Captain, I haven’t been able to ascertain whether he remained in command until the vessel’s decommissioning for conversion to conventional power.
The German Wikipedia says following:
“1969 wurde Lehmann-Willenbrock Kapitän des einzigen deutschen atomgetriebenen Schiffs, der Otto Hahn; das Kommando hatte er fünf Jahre lang.”
Thus Der Alte commanded NS Otto Hahn 1969-1974, 5 years before Otto Hahn conversed to conventional power.
You are right, the best I have seen too. It’s hard to find the best part but if I had, I would choose the Bastogne Part.
Tom Hanks wants to produce another WW2-Series, this Time about a B17 Crew
Supposedly that’s in production now. “The Mighty Eighth”. Although it’s supposed to concentrate on a single Bomb Group, not a single crew. IIRC, they are focusing on the 100th Bomb Group, but I’m not certain.
I have read an article and there were the informations you have in too. If it’s nearly that good as " band of brothers " it’s worth to watch too, I guess
It’s the one with John Wayne when they bring McArthur in safety with their Speedboats, right? I really like John Wayne, but to me he is better in a Western. So many great Western with Duke, many classics
Yes, They Were Expendable is about the USN Torpedo Boat Squadron in the Philippines during 1941/42 Japanese offensive campaign to conquer the islands. Definitely one of Wayne’s better wartime films. If made today it would have the phrase “Inspired by Actual Events” before the opening credits, as most of the incidents and characters are based upon real people and events.
