Author
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Topic: The Sinking of the Laconia
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Graham Ritchie
Film God
Posts: 4001
From: New Zealand
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted January 03, 2013 06:13 PM
We watched the dvd last night of the true story of the sinking of the Cunard Liner "Laconia" in 1942 by U-156 commanded by Werner Hartenstein in the South Atlantic. Its an amazing story of how Werner Hartenstein and his crew of the U-156 towed the survivors and life boats in his attempt to help so many.
I read an article about this years ago, so I was interested to watch the movie. I was expecting a well made polished production, however the camera work and editing was terrible. It seemed like the movie was all "hand held" shots, even with stationary dialogue between two actors, the camera was moving up/down, left/right, all over the place and totally distracting...."its lazy"..dont they use a tripod these days?.
Apart from the lousy camera work I found the rest of the production.. script and acting all poorly done.
What could have been a gripping few hours, and it should have been, instead became a drag.
The best part of the dvd was a documentary called "The Sinking of the Laconia: Survivors Stories" that was excellent.
Its a pity they did not employ the services of brilliant director Wolfgang Petersen of "Das Boot" fame and his film crew to make this type of film. Commander.. Werner Hertenstein of U-156. Hundreds of survivors from the "Laconia" on board the real U-156, The U Boat was also towing a number survivors in life boats as well. Although responsible for for the sinking of the Laconia both Werner Hartenstein and his crew did there best to help afterwards.
Graham.
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