One-Day Tour of Duty

We arrive at the naval submarine base in San Diego at the crack of dawn in rented stretch limousines, a motley crew consisting of the director and two actors from the new Universal Pictures submarine film, “U-571,” a TV crew from “Access Hollywood” and assorted journalists, photographers and studio publicists.

Our mission: Board the nuclear-powered, fast-attack submarine USS Portsmouth, home-ported at San Diego’s Point Loma, and head for open seas about 15 miles off the coast of Mexico in what has to be one of the strangest movie publicity tours in recent memory.

How strange is it?

For starters, there’s “U-571” director and co-writer Jonathan Mostow and a TV cameraman standing atop the wind-swept bridge of the submarine, eyeballing ship traffic as we cruise out of San Diego Harbor.

There’s actor Erik Palladino (Dr. Dave Mallucci on NBC’s hit series “ER”), who plays a hotheaded submariner named Mazzola in “U-571,” firing a fake torpedo blast called a “water slug,” triggering a deafening roar that sends tremors throughout the torpedo room.

There’s actor Jack Noseworthy, who plays a German American U.S. Navy radioman in the film, crawling through one of the Portsmouth’s empty 21-foot-long torpedo tubes to scribble his autograph on the chamber’s metal cover.

And, if those activities aren’t surreal enough, there’s entertainment reporter Shaun Robinson of “Access Hollywood” clutching the helm hundreds of feet beneath the Pacific Ocean and deadpanning as her cameraman jockeys for position: “Am I going too fast?”

For Universal, the chance to come aboard one of America’s menacing attack subs--painted jet black to avoid detection--is a major publicity coup, for it provides a riveting backdrop for talking about “U-571.”

The film, which stars Matthew McConaughey, Bill Paxton and Harvey Keitel, opens Friday. It tells a tense fictional tale of a daring mission by U.S. submariners to capture a top-secret Nazi coding device from a German submarine in April 1942. When their own sub is destroyed, the Americans are trapped in an enemy vessel deep in hostile waters and must learn to operate the U-boat if they are to make it back to safety.

The submarine thriller has long been a popular genre for filmmakers. Whether it’s “Das Boot,” “The Hunt for Red October,” “Run Silent, Run Deep” or “Crash Dive,” there’s something about brave men sweating out depth charges, bursting water pipes and crew conflicts at the bottom of the ocean that holds a fascination for screenwriters of every generation.

With a production budget estimated at $60 million, “U-571” is the first of a number of World War II movies Hollywood has green-lighted since Steven Spielberg rejuvenated the genre with the Oscar-nominated “Saving Private Ryan.” In the wings are Disney’s “Pearl Harbor” with a budget rumored to be north of $135 million, as well as Jean-Jacques Annaud’s “Enemy at the Gates” (a Paramount/Mandalay co-production), set against the 1942 siege of Stalingrad.

Mostow is no stranger to taut thrillers. He co-wrote and directed the 1997 nail-biter “Breakdown” with Kurt Russell, a film celebrated for its tight, nonstop action and relentless pace. Mostow brings that same intensity to “U-571” as the American submariners try to outwit the German navy.

For the Navy, the daylong voyage provides a golden opportunity to publicize its submarine force, which this year celebrates its 100th anniversary. What began in 1900 with the purchase of the gasoline-powered submarine USS Holland today is a worldwide fleet of 56 nuclear-powered attack subs, called “fast attacks,” and 18 ballistic missile subs, called “boomers.”

Crew Must Adapt to Tight Quarters

The 360-foot 6,900-ton Portsmouth, commissioned in 1983 in Portsmouth, N.H., has a top speed exceeding 25 knots and can dive below 800 feet. It carries an arsenal of weapons that includes the MK-48 advanced capability torpedo, Tomahawk cruise missiles and various undersea mines. Space is so limited on the sub that some low-ranking crew members bunk next to the torpedoes.

The submarine, under the command of Cmdr. Patrick H. Brady, consists of 13 officers and about 130 enlisted men, all volunteers for submarine duty.

The trip not only gives the Hollywood contingent a firsthand glimpse at what it’s like to operate a modern submarine, it also puts a human face on today’s submariners, men such as Brady; Lt. Cmdr. Scott Swehla, Brady’s second in command; Engineer Mike Coughlin; Lt. Ed Fernandez, the sub’s navigation officer; Master Chief Petty Officer Tommy Lewis, the chief of the boat; and Machinist Mates Paul J. Davenport and Phillip Hogge.

Mostow marvels at the bravery, skill and patriotism exhibited by the submariners he meets.

“The idea of being submerged and never sticking your head out and seeing the sun and being in a claustrophobic environment--that is a pretty incredible sacrifice to make for your country,” Mostow says. “Plus, they are leaving their families and kids for months. . . . World War II patrols were rarely more than 60 days. These guys today are going out on six-month patrols.”

Mostow also notes that during World War II, American submarines were not really capable of lengthy dives. They were submersible but traveled mostly on the surface.

“These guys [on the Portsmouth] submerge and may not break the surface for 90 days,” he notes. “The only thing limiting them is their food supply.”

*

Mostow’s interest in making a submarine movie was first piqued in 1992 while he was scouting locations in San Francisco for another film. He noticed a sign at Fisherman’s Wharf offering $2 tours of a real World War II submarine. He took the tour and was hooked.

Soon, Mostow was visiting the library to research submarine warfare, reading ship’s diaries and first-person accounts of submariners in World War II. He would later visit mothballed World War II submarines and tour war museums.

Eventually, he met retired Vice Adm. Patrick Hannifin, who became technical advisor on the film. It was Hannifin who introduced the filmmaker to retired submarine officers and enlisted men who told of their experiences during the war and also obtained the Navy’s support for “U-571.”

“Submarines kind of came into their own in World War II,” Mostow says, “and they really were the only way for us to battle the Japanese in the Pacific. Our Navy took a huge hit at Pearl Harbor. The Japanese didn’t have the kind of detection systems that could stop [our submarines] in the Pacific.”

In the Atlantic, meanwhile, Hitler had launched Operation Drumbeat, a devastating U-boat assault. It is against this backdrop--the Battle of the Atlantic--that “U-571” unfolds.

Three Submarines Built for the Film

Mostow, who receives story and screenwriting credit on the film along with screenwriters Sam Montgomery and David Ayer, turned to veteran Italian filmmaker Dino De Laurentiis and his wife, Martha De Laurentiis, to produce the film.

Pre-production began at Cinecitta Studios in Rome and on the island of Malta. Three submarines were built for the film--a 211-foot, 600-ton seagoing replica of a German type VII U-boat that was used for exterior sequences, and two “floaters” that were used in two enormous outdoor tanks at the MFS Film Studios in Malta.

Two production designers were brought onto the project: Gotz Weidner, who was the production designer on Wolfgang Petersen’s 1981 German submarine thriller “Das Boot,” and William Ladd Skinner, who served as art director on the Academy Award-winning “Dances With Wolves” as well as “12 Monkeys.”

No John Wayne-Type Captain on This Sub

Mostow chose McConaughey for the lead role of Lt. Andrew Tyler because he was impressed by the actor’s performances in past films, notably Joel Schumacher’s 1996 legal thriller, “A Time to Kill.”

“When audiences see this movie, they’ll see a whole new side of him they don’t know existed,” Mostow said of McConaughey.

The soft-spoken Paxton might seem an odd choice to play McConaughey’s superior, Lt. Cmdr. Mike Dahlgren, but Mostow says submarine captains aren’t like Marine Corps officers.

“Most people, when they think of a submarine captain, think of a John Wayne-type character,” Mostow said. “In fact, in the submarine service, captains are anything but. Real submarine captains are much more thoughtful, almost gentle souls. You have to instantly earn the respect of your men. A guy who is just a hard-ass is not going to get along in a literally closed and sealed society.”

Palladino’s character, Mazzola, is a hotheaded kid from Brooklyn, Mostow says. “I don’t think you can make a World War II movie without having a hotheaded kid from Brooklyn.” At the test screening, Mostow notes, audiences cheered when McConaughey’s character punches Mazzola.

Noseworthy, who worked with Mostow in “Breakdown,” plays the radioman Wentz, who doesn’t want his crew mates to know that he has German ancestry.

*

Mostow recalls that the biggest challenge faced by the cast and crew was re-creating the reality of the North Atlantic in 1942.

“That included the largest rainstorm in the history of movies,” Mostow said. The director noted that for one nighttime sequence, in which McConaughey and other American commandos posing as Germans attempt to board a disabled U-boat in a driving rainstorm, the filmmakers had to pump 15,000 gallons a minute of seawater over the tank in Malta.

Both Noseworthy and Palladino say they wish they had taken the voyage on the Portsmouth before making the film because it would have allowed them to experience what a submariner’s life is really like, though, as Palladino notes, “we got to spend a lot of time on the sub we created. We were there for 14 hours a day in a confined space.”

Touring in a real sub clearly agrees with the two fun-loving actors, who trade jokes like Hope and Crosby throughout the voyage.

“I own the tube!” Noseworthy tells Palladino, referring to his crawl down the empty torpedo tube to sign his autograph.

Then the actors and Mostow get the chance of a lifetime.

Actors Take Craft Through Maneuvers

With Palladino in the helmsman’s chair, Noseworthy as planesman (the crewman who steers the sub up and down) and Mostow keeping watch on all the gauges as officer of the deck, the trio begins taking the sub through various maneuvers as real submariners squat alongside them to make sure nothing goes awry.

Brady, the commander, then explains that we are going to do some practice dives, going from 200 feet down to 500 feet and back up again at a speed of 10 knots.

Robinson, of “Access Hollywood,” calls out the orders (prompted by Brady): “Diving officer, submerge the ship! . . . Dive! Dive!”

An alarm sounds. We are going down, and Mostow, Noseworthy and Palladino are at the controls.

“Jonathan,” Mostow is asked, “how do you think Jack and Erik would have fared as sailors?”

“With or without the attitude?” Mostow jokes as laughter ripples through the control room.

At one point, Palladino pretends to be a lowrider, slouching in the helmsman’s chair.

“Hey, ‘Access Hollywood,’ “Noseworthy says into the camera, “we’re at 429 feet!”

“Can we do it one more time?” the cameraman asks the actor as the sub continues its descent. A few moments pass, then Noseworthy tries again.

“Hey, ‘Access Hollywood,’ we’re at 456 feet!”

Palladino moans in the next chair: “We’re goin’ down.”

“Who wrote that?” Noseworthy laughs.

“You know what?” Palladino replies. “We gotta find a writer.”

*

Back on shore, everyone seems exhausted by the day’s adventure.

“We were actors in a movie playing roles,” Noseworthy observes. “These guys do it for real. I asked one guy, ‘Did you see the movie?’ He said, ‘No. We’ve been underwater for three weeks protecting the country.”

The actors, cell phones to their ears, then walk back to their waiting limousine.