U-571

Question: Throughout the film you can see that Tank, played by Dave Power, has funny-looking thin black scars on both cheeks. Was this a makeup effect for the character (and if so, why did they do it), or does the actor really have these scars on his cheeks (and if so, what from)?

Answer: The scars you see on Tank's face are fake, pure makeup. They wanted the character to have a gritty look.

Question: At first we learn that Tyler is not getting his own submarine, but then a few scenes later and he's being fired from the navy. What happened?

Answer: Technically he's not getting fired, but Dahlgren did not recommend Tyler for his own command, and he won't get a promotion without Dahlgren's recommendation. Therefore, Tyler's only choices are to keep being an executive officer (which is possible but not what he wants, not to mention Tyler feels betrayed by Dahlgren and isn't sure he wants to continue working with him), or leave the navy entirely.

Aerinah

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Mistakes

Factual error: At the beginning of the movie, the German sub gets surprised and severely damaged by a destroyer. The sonar man first notices the enemy destroyer approaching, but only a short time before the destroyer is already literally on top of the sub. German sonar at the time had the capacity to detect ships up to more than 7 miles away. (00:03:40)

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: He was in the sound room, not running sonar...given they were attacking a convoy, they wouldn't be running soar as that could be picked up by other ships.

Steve Kozak

That is not correct. The German U-boat is literally running passive sonar and detecting the destroyer with that. Active sonar, using a 'ping' sound that could be picked up by other ships, was rarely, if ever, used by German U-boats at all.

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Quotes

Lt. Commander Mike Dahlgren: Relax gentlemen. She's old... but she'll hold.

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Trivia

Trivia: Matthew McConaughey didn't like his character's background, so he asked that it be changed from the original, not being promoted because he was a drunk, to basically never making a decision that might cost someone their life.

David Robertson

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