U47 - Kapitänleutnant Prien (1958) User Reviews (6)

Portrayal of German commandant Prien who penetrated Scapa Flow and sank British battleships

[ma-cortes · 5/10 · 16 April 2010]

This is a wartime movie full of stock shots,underwater attacks , tension and historical events.At the beginning of the film is planned a military operation by high command (Doenitz) because of being sunk many civil ships, as Captain Prien is assigned a dangerous mission at Scapa Flow. Prien goes back successfully Germany where is decorated. Later on, a priest, Prien's ex-partner school, ask him help for hide some refugees. Mediocre performance by Dieter Eppler as Prien, an unknown actor who does a wooden acting. As secondaries appear Joachin Fuchsberger as 2º commandant and Peter Carsten , booth of whom played during the 60s several European co-productions. The motion picture is regularly directed by Harald Reinl with too much stock-footage and scale models. He is a craftsman who directed all kind of genres as terror (Torture chamber, The invisible Dr Mabuse), Western (Winnetou saga), Epic (Nibelungen) Krimi and warlike.

The film provides a brief detailing of life aboard and a portrait about the crews subjected to stressful and psychological tensions.In fact the sailors had sleep in shifts.For months they were lodged in close quarters because every inch the space was needed for machinery,supplies and torpedoes.The air was heavy with odors from bilges,diesel oil and unwashed bodies.The men faced sudden death from depth charges ,aerial bombing attacks or the sharp bow of a swift destroyer as happen in this film. Rating : 5,5 average.

The picture is based on on real events , these are the following : Commander Günther Prien (16 January 1908 – presumed 7 March 1941) was one of the outstanding German U-boat aces of the first part of the Second World War, and the first U-boat commander to win the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Under Prien's command, the submarine U-47 sank over 30 Allied ships totaling about 200,000 gross register tons . By far his most famous exploit, however, was the sinking of the British battleship HMS Royal Oak at anchor in the Home Fleet's anchorage in Scapa Flow. Early in World War II, on 14 October 1939, U-47, under the command of Günther Prien, penetrated Scapa Flow and sank the World War I–era battleship HMS Royal Oak anchored in Scapa Bay. Her second torpedo attack blew a 30-foot (9 m) hole in the Royal Oak which, as a result, flooded and quickly capsized. Of the 1,400-man crew, 833 were lost. The wreck is now a protected war grave .

Good try, but should have been better,

[gordonl56 · 7/10 · 6 March 2016]

U47 – KAPITANLEUTNANT PRIEN 1958

This war film is about the Captain of U-47 of the German Navy in WW2. The man, Gunther Prien, became an instant hero of the Reich when he took his submarine into the British naval base at Scapa Flow, and sank the Royal Navy battleship, ROYAL OAK.

The German film follows Prien and his crew as they are "asked" to volunteer for the difficult task of sneaking into the heavily defended anchorage of Scapa Flow. Scapa Flow was a major target for the German Navy. Not only was it a major base, it was the site of the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet at the end of World War One. Quite a few of the surrendered battleships were later scuttled by their crews rather than let the British have them.

The submarine, U-47, manages to find a way in past several block ships and over an old anti-submarine net. They sneak up to torpedo range of the battleship ROYAL OAK. They fire several torpedoes that fail to hit the stationary target. They do a quick reload and fire another round of torpedoes. These hit home causing the ROYAL OAK to rollover and sink taking 800 plus crewmen with her.

Prien then threaded his command back out and into the safety of the North Sea. It is now back to Germany and a heroes welcome.

The film now bogs down with too much domestic play about Prien's wife and family. There is the odd comical bit thrown in about the not stop parties the crew has to celebrate their U-boat's success. For some reason the writers throw in a bit about Prien helping rescue folks from the camps.

The film then returns to sea and combat. There is plenty of good wartime footage showing various ships sinking etc. Then a rather far fetched idea of how Prien and his sub were lost in March 1941. U-47 was a very successful ship, which between the war's start and its loss, sank 31 ships totalling close to 200,000 tons. It is not known exactly when or where U-47 was lost.

The cast is made up of, Dieter Eppler, Joachim Fuchsberger, Harold Juhnke, Richard Haussler and Sabine Sesselmann. The director, Harald Reniel was best known as the director of the documentary, CHARIOTS OF THE GODS about u.f.o.'s visiting earth.

While the action scenes are while handled, the film seems much longer than it is. This is because of the film being padded out with family and political nonsense that adds nothing to the production. There is just too much fiction mixed in with the historical facts.

Historically inaccurate

[sonnyschlaegel · 4/10 · 30 January 2008]

I thought this one was a fairly decent movie until I read that Captain Prien never was a member of the German resistance - but in this movie, he is. The two most important parts of the plot are the war action and a completely fictitious story that shows Prien trying to free an old friend of his, a priest who has been arrested because he helped Jews. But Prien was in fact a member of the Nazi party and was never involved in the resistance. They should at least have added a disclaimer telling the viewers that this part of the movie is purely fictitious. Apart from this inaccuracy, I think the movie is enjoyable for people (like me) that like submarine movies. For example, the war action includes Prien's famous raid on Scapa Flow. But even the parts showing war action could have been better. The budget was obviously limited, so they included actual footage from WW II. This may sound interesting, but there are too many problems with that in my opinion. The footage looks much grainier than the rest of the movie, and when the footage changes from new to old, the editing is often not very good. For example, in one shot it's night, in the next it looks like dawn or dusk, then again like night. So the changes from new to old footage (and back) are always very / too noticeable.

On the plus side, there is some funny banter between the mariners. Among them: Harald Juhnke, an entertainer who is famous in Germany. He plays the cook. His scenes are funny, but I guess some of them will make those who like him a bit sad: in these scenes he drinks too much alcohol. Juhnke's alcoholism in real life was very probably the main cause of his death. He was born in 1929, and I think he would still be alive today (2008) if he had been able to control his alcoholism.

Also among the mariners: Ernst Reinhold as Lt. Raufuss (or Rauhfuß?), whom fans of old submarine movies might remember from 'Haie und kleine Fische' (1957). If you haven't seen that one: I liked it better than 'U 47', so I think I can recommend it if you like this kind of movie. I don't think it's a great movie, but it's also about submarines, there's more (and funnier) banter, and it isn't as inaccurate as 'U 47'. (Or, to be more precise, it is a fictitious story that doesn't use the names of real historic persons when such names should not be used.)

Not "the boat", still fun to watch

[2nd_Ekkard · 25 March 2002]

Nothing in submarine war movies will ever get close to "Das Boot", that is for sure. This picture from the fifties takes a perpective partly based on the case of a "Kaleu" - a Kapitänleutnant who really existed and was used by german propaganda in ww2 for his courage and tactical creativity. It is a well done picture from these days, when other german war movies of the post-war period from today´s point of view had a lack of brilliance in both action and historical accuracy. This one has Dieter Eppler and Joachim Fuchsberger in it, struggling against inner and outer enemies. Dieter Borsche, playing a priest, tries to win Prien for "Wiederstand"-activities: the german resistance. A nice gimmick is Harald Juhnke, Germany´s number one entertainer in the 1980´s with a notorious drinking problem in real life, plays the "smutje", the cook in the submarine crew: Bigmouthed, always drunk and fun to watch.

Only defining for the genre as there aren't really that many submarine films about World War II, not because of the quality

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 24 November 2016]

"U47 - Kapitänleutnant Prien" or "U-47 Lt. Commander Prien" is a West German movie from 1958, so this one will soon have its 60th anniversary. As it was made back in the last 1950s, more than a decade had already passed since the end of World War II and at that point the way Germans dealt with the events of the last 2.5 decades was very effective already, which also refers to the many films on the subject from West Germany back in the 1950s. The title already gives away that this one here focuses on the military career of one of Germany's biggest war commanders, but this time at sea and not like Rommel at land. The movie runs for slightly under 1.5 hours and is in black-and-white, which should not surprise anybody really looking at when the film came out. Today, however, Prien has been mostly forgotten if we are not talking about people with a huge interest in the subject of World War II and even I as somebody who has seen so many films and documentaries on the subject has not really been familiar with Prien before watching these almost 90 minutes here. And Dieter Eppler, who plays the main character here is also not really known to many anymore today. But there are more known cast members too. Blacky Fuchsberger and Harald Juhnke were still at or slightly under the age of 30 and relatively early in their careers when they appeared in this film. Vera Tschechowa and Dieter Borsche were more experienced already, so this film sure comes up with a couple familiar names for people with an interest in (slightly older) German movies. There may be more names that I myself am just not familiar with. Talking about the story of Prien, I cannot say I was too impressed at all. Then again, this may also be at least partially due to my personal bias with submarine films (also not a fan at all of "Das Boot") or my bias with films about the Nazi era that have very little (or almost nothing) to do with politics really, but focus on the military, which was never, also in much more modern movies, an area that I had a lot of interest in. As a consequence, the film dragged to me on quite a few occasions and I also never developed as much of an interest in the characters as I had hoped. If these fields interest you more than they interest me, I cannot rule out that this film ends up a much more serving watch for you than it was for me. Judging from my personal perception, I still give it a thumbs-down though and for me it confirms that with the large quantity of war-themed films from back then, the result are also many forgettable films.

Crimson Tide.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 4/10 · 21 February 2021]

Knowing him for his work in the Thriller genre,I decided to take a look at Harald Reinl's credits to see what else he had done. Discovering that I had a War flick which I had been unaware was by Reinl, I got set to see U47 dive.

View on the film:

Clearly working on a far lower budget then the one he would later have for his run of Krimi movies, director Harald Reinl & his regular cinematographer Ernst W. Kalinke find space in the middle of poor stock footage for U47's attacks to drill a tense atmosphere into the submarine, with grinding, scarping sounds being played in the background,as Reinl tightly holds the camera into each corner, capturing the on-edge confinement of the crew.

Playing fast and lose with the reality of this "True Story", (the real Captain Prien was not a member of the German Resistance) the screenplay by Reinl's regular scriptwriter J. Joachim Bartsch (joined here by Udo Wolter) presents U47's sinking of British warships in a flat manner,lacking any hint of the on-edge action mood the film is trying to build, with the lone sparks coming from the writers diving into the casual bickering of the crew on the U47.