I will have to admit, I watched this movie primarily because David Hedison was in it. I'm glad that I did, because it's an excellent movie.

It deals with an American ship coming up against a German U-boat, and the intense "chess game" that is played out as each captain tries to outthink the other.

It starts out with the American ship getting a new captain, a "feather merchant"--in other words, a civilian rather than a career Navy man. His executive officer (Hedison) is also a former civilian--a rich playboy who's nautical experience is from sailing in yacht races. The crew's initial distrust (and sometimes contempt) for their captain quickly changes once the "game" gets underway and they realize that he knows his stuff.

I liked the fact that they did not present the German crew as stereotyped enemies. They are ordinary men, doing their job just as the Americans were. In fact, the captain doesn't really think much of this new "Nazi" regime--although he obeys his orders. At one point, he sees one of his gung-ho officers absorbed in a book by Hitler (presumably Mein Kampf, although I didn't see the title clearly) and sort of rolls his eyes. Further along in the movie, when the sub is being subjected to repeated depth-charge bombardment from above, one of the younger crew cracks, arming himself with a huge wrench. The captain arrives on the scene, and quietly talks him into handing over the wrench. Rather than having the boy arrested or at least confined to quarters, he hands back the wrench and tells him to put it away.

A couple highlights were the American ship executing some precise manuevers to just miss getting hit by torpedos, and the German captain (after the incident mentioned above) giving morale a shot in the arm by playing a loud, patriotic song and singing along with it, knowing full well that the ship above will pick it up on sonar.

A droll little scene showed a seaman lying in his bunk, reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, while a few feet away, an officer is raptly perusing an issue of "Little Orphan Annie."

The tension builds steadily, and the ending, while a bit unexpected, is very satisfying.