Mystery Sea Raider

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Movie
Original title Mystery Sea Raider
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1940
length 73 minutes
Rod
Director Edward Dmytryk
script Robert Grant
production Eugene J. Zukor for Paramount Pictures
music Albert Hay Malotte ,
Victor Young
camera Harry Fischbeck
cut Archie Marshek
occupation

Mystery Sea Raider is an American film from 1940 about the submarine warfare of World War II . In Brazil the film was called Corsário Fantasma or O Corsário Fantasma , in Sweden Raid på Atlanten .

action

Captain Jimmy Madden is the owner of the rather dilapidated steamer Apache , which was docked in New York harbor in the late summer of 1939 without a freight order . Jimmy was not only waiting for jobs, but also for his fiancée June, who is on her way back to the US after working in show business in the UK .

June travels back to New York from London on the passenger steamer Aleria and on the voyage meets the likeable Carl Cutler, a somewhat opaque businessman who claims to be active in the import-export business. Surprisingly, the radio arrives at the Aleria that war has broken out between Great Britain and the German Empire .

Cutler has contact with a Kriegsmarine submarine that the Aleria is already tracking. He directs the submarine's attack on the passenger ship, which is hit by a torpedo and sinks. During the rescue operation, Cutler takes care of June, who now sees him as her lifesaver.

Rescued by another ship, the Aleria survivors arrive in New York. June is dissatisfied with Jimmy, who is still dreaming of a freight job instead of looking for a lucrative job ashore. But Jimmy does n't want to give up the Apache .

June wants to help Jimmy. Through her contact with Cutler, she not only gets a job at the El Tovor nightclub , but the latter agrees to get Jimmy an assignment. Jimmy is skeptical, but accepts Cutler's offer. In the meantime it has become clear that Cutler is a German secret agent and officer in the Navy who has contacts with German intelligence circles in the USA.

Cutler smuggles a troop of agents on the Apache and takes over the ship before it leaves without the crew knowing. June is also captured after leaving the country. On the high seas, Carl transforms into a German naval officer. He explains to Jimmy that the Apache will now operate as a German warship that will serve as the mother ship for submarines.

The Apache is transformed into Prince Knute . Cutler takes over a prize crew from the German U-boat U 30 . By simulating a fire, a British tanker is lured, which is conquered by the supposedly shipwrecked Prince Knute and then sunk by flooding. The tanker sinks to the bottom of the sea. A buoy with an oil pipe rises from the wreck , with which German submarines in the northern Caribbean ( Bahamas ) can now be supplied.

The German submarines sink numerous merchant ships, their passengers and crews are brought on board the Prince Knute . Eventually the British realize that the losses of their ships were due to the activity of a raider and use massive warships of the Royal Navy to hunt down the mother ship. On the Apache / Prince Knute , the real crew, led by Jimmy and with the help of Junes, who are wrongly suspected of collaborating with the Nazis, develop a plan to take over the ship. It succeeds in partially overpowering the German prize garrison.

But Cutler retains control of the ship. Surrounded by British units, in a hopeless situation he decides to evacuate his own crew and the prisoners from the ship. He himself sinks with the Apache / Prince Knute . The remaining crew members are rescued.

Contemporary production background

The film was produced between the outbreak of World War II in Europe in September 1939 and the USA's entry into the war in December 1941. Although the German side is staged as insidious and brutal - the existence of concentration camps is definitely mentioned - but ultimately Cutler proves to be a fair opponent who prevents the extermination of the prisoners and his own team and who sacrifices himself single-handedly.

In the figure of Cutler, the commander of the ironclad Admiral Graf Spee , sea ​​captain Hans Langsdorff can be recognized, who, after knowing his crew was safe after the ship was scuttled, committed suicide . Another allusion relates to the auxiliary cruiser Atlantis ( ship 16 ) under Bernhard Rogge . The sinking of the Aleria apparently relates to the sinking of the Athenia by U 30 in September 1939.

See also

Web links