Review of We Dive at Dawn (1943) by Jonathan B — 22 Oct 2011

There's a clutch of films that are ingrained into the British psyche and We Dive At Dawn is one of them. The war years saw a flurry of rousing movies designed specifically to tell of the heroism of British forces and keep up the spirits of the public at home front.

We Dive At Dawn follows the crew of the submarine Sea Tiger on a mission in the Baltic and North Atlantic to destroy a German battleship. It has all those classic submarine movie elements such as the cat and mouse game with the quarry, sea mines, depth charges and nets that snarl the sub.

Like the best of this genre, the plot focuses on the interplay between the tightly knit crew and we see both the routine and the the tension that makes up the lives of the characters,.

A competent cast is headed by John Mills who seems to embody that more relaxed style of Captain that fiction populates submarines with. The direction by Anthony Asquith is competent and business-like and the special effects generally stand up well against the standards of today.

Many films in this genre are cliched and hackneyed but with its engaging and gripping storyline, this is a landmark movie that deserves the reputation that it rightly holds.