La Grande Speranza (The Big Hope), retitled Submarine Attack and Torpedo Zone in English, is a 1954 Italian anti-war film starring Lois Maxwell, Renato Baldini and Earl Cameron. It won the Special Prize of the Senate of Berlin, and the OCIC Award at the Berlin International Film Festival.[1] Marcantonio Bragadin was an adviser on the film, which was shot inside and on the deck of a real submarine.

Submarine Attack, aka La Grande Speranza, the Great Hope, Torpedo Zone
Directed byDuilio Coletti
Written byOreste Biancoli, Marcаntonio Bragadin, Duilio Coletti, Ennio De Concini
Produced byDuilio Coletti, Excelsa Film
StarringLois Maxwell, Renato Baldini, Folco Lulli
CinematographyLeonida Barboni
Edited byGiuliana Attenni
Music byNino Rota
Production
company
Excelsa Film
Distributed byMinerva Film
I.F.E. Releasing Corporation (English version)
Release date
  • 1954 (1954)
Running time
86 minutes (English version)
CountryItaly
LanguagesItalian, dubbed into English

Plot summary

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An Italian submarine captain conducts successful attacks on enemy merchant shipping in the eastern Atlantic Ocean during World War II, and then rescues the survivors of his victims, including a member of the Canadian Women's Army Corps (and a dog). The captain's compulsion to save his victims culminates in his taking aboard 24 additional Danish merchant seamen; with no space down below, they are accommodated under the walkway outside the hull, at risk of drowning if the submarine is forced to submerge. He then sails the survivors hundreds of miles across the open ocean on the surface to put them ashore in the Azores.

Cast

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References

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  1. ^ "4th Berlin International Film Festival: In Competition". berlinale.de. Retrieved 2009-12-23.
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