Morning Departure

A British submarine film. The war is over. A submarine goes out for a routine exercise. The crew expect an ordinary day. They strike a mine. The boat sinks and comes to rest on the bottom. Most of them die. Twelve are left. A rescue begins. Ships gather on the surface and divers go down. There is a method. With escape apparatus they can go up one at a time. There are eight sets. Twelve men. From there the film is a story of waiting. Who will go out and who will stay. They draw lots. Eight go out. Four stay. For those left there is another plan. The boat will be lifted. The weather worsens. The cable parts. They have to wait for a second attempt. The air inside is thinning. Carbon dioxide builds and the headaches start. The four men talk. Families, habits, plans and regrets. One is frightened. The narrative gives this not as a weakness but as a fact. What the narrative is interested in is not rescue but order: its idea is that deciding who goes out is a matter of method, and that nobody questions the method. The line above is inside the narrative too. Families wait at the port and the press is there. The ending is not hopeful. The narrative builds no scene of deliverance and the last shot is entirely silent. There was an accident while it was being made. A British submarine really sank and most of its crew died; the film was therefore held back for a time and a statement was added. The source is Kenneth Woollard's play. It was shot on a submarine set built in a studio and the sense of confinement comes from that. Roy Ward Baker directed. John Mills, Richard Attenborough, Nigel Patrick and Lana Morris are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes postwar British cinema and confined tension. Who it is not for: anyone looking for action; the narrative is built entirely on waiting and the tempo is deliberately slow.