Stupidity: No U-boat commander is going to "finish off" a ship that is dead in the water and is on fire from stem to stern. He exposes his boat and his men to mortal peril by surfacing, brightly lit by a full moon and the fires burning on the sinking ship, making them a sitting duck for the destroyers that might well be still in the area. He also wastes a precious torpedo for absolutely no net gain.
Das Boot (1981)
1 stupidity
Directed by: Wolfgang Petersen
Starring: Jurgen Prochnow, Herbert Gronemeyer, Hubertus Bengsch, Klaus Wennemann
Continuity mistake: At the end of the first attack by the destroyer - where she misses the U-boat and throws her bombs further away - the boatswain makes 22, then 23 strokes on the slate of the Control Centre,thus counting the number of depth charges used against the boat. A few seconds later, in a shot from another angle, with the slate in full view, we see only 22 strokes. (01:03:30)
Captain: I'm sorry.
Lt. Werner: Is it hopeless?
Captain: It's been 15 hours. He's not going to pull it off. I'm sorry.
Lt. Werner: I asked for it. 'To be heading into the inexorable... where no mother will care for us... no woman crosses our path... where only reality reigns... with cruelty and grandeur.' I was drunk with those words. Well, this is reality.
Trivia: The full sized mock up of the U boat was rented by Steven Spielberg for use in the first Indiana Jone's film.
Question: What's the music the German band are playing at the end when U96 returns to port?
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Answer: It's the 'Erzherzog Albrecht Marsch', composed 1887.