Torpedo Zone (1955)
"La grande speranza" (original title)

During WWII, handsome young Italian sub commander and his crew torpedo Allied freighters and transport ships for the Axis then rescue the occasional survivor and treat them humanely while seeking a safe place to put them ashore.

Director:

Duilio Coletti

Writers:

Oreste Biancoli (screenplay), Marc-Antonio Bragadin (screenplay),

Stars:

Lois Maxwell, Renato Baldini, Carlo Bellini

2 wins.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Lois Maxwell	...	Lt. Lily Donald
Renato Baldini	...	The Submarine Commandanti
Carlo Bellini	...	Officer
Aldo Bufi Landi	...	Lieutenant
Earl Cameron	...	Johnny Brown, POW
David Carbonari
Ludovico Ceriana
Carlo Delle Piane	...	Ciccio
Edward Fleming	...	Jean Cartier
José Jaspe	...	Spanish POW
Paolo Panelli
Rudy Solinas
Henri Vidon	...	Robert Steiner
Folco Lulli	...	Nostromo, First Mate
Guido Bizzarri

Storyline

During WWII, handsome young Italian sub commander and his crew torpedo Allied freighters and transport ships for the Axis then rescue the occasional survivor and treat them humanely while seeking a safe place to put them ashore.

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Plot Keywords:

rescue | torpedo | sneak attack | submarine | italian navy | 

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Taglines:

There's DRAMA - There's DANGER - There's DEATH

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Genres:

Romance | War | Action | Drama

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Details

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Release Date:

3 June 1955 (West Germany)

Also Known As:

Submarine Attack

Company Credits

Production Co:

Excelsa Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Ferraniacolor)

User Reviews

Far from being interesting war submarine opportunistic drama

It is really true that the fraternity between members of different nations in times of war tension provoked memorable moments in such classics like Le Grand Illusion (1937) by Jean Renoir, but the same isn't true for the everyday production throughout the time, provoking much more sentimental equivocal like this one. This film has a notorious absence of balance since his first cartels, an opportunistic tribute to more than 90 Italian submarines that operated in Second World War; it is very ironic that although its pretense worries in create an humanistic approach to a war theme, evidently a genre more linked with destruction and combat, the movie reclaims a tribute to the "submarines", not to the human beings that worked on them. It is the melodramatic logic of feelings that nurtures all the actions in an abstract idealized world.Perhaps through this frame only we could understand the passive way that the 24 Danish men just pray when they are in an imminence of being submerged together with the submarine – the room where they stay isn't free of the effects of submersion. The same could be said for the pathetic and very long scene of Christmas night, as fragile in dramatic terms as the Christmas tree jumped after the back of "normal" routine situation. Anyway this shows how all the events are only subordinated to the imperatives of the (weak) narrative. Even with all involuntarily histrionic plot and acting, with few exceptions like the commander played by Renato Baldini, this movie was certainly a production with a budget above the media of Italian cinema then produced, some perceptible even by the use of color cinematography, something rare at the time.