It is near the end of the Second World War and Britain is starting to overwhelm the German U-boats. Yea! This is Nazi Germany's last ping-schlep-kerchunk-BANG!

"A submarine bolt popping triumph!"

"I do love to hear Germans scream!"

"It'z alonk vey to Tippervary, It'zz a longgk vey to gooe!"

"I was invited to a smelly vision version of this movie to celebrate its 20th anniversary but I declined because I was sure it would have smelled like a whole room filled with sweaty/farty socks."

"...to zee hmm humm hmm hmmm ooooo, yumty tum, Tippevvary..."

"Even the Oscars should have got an Oscar for this movie."

"A few more jokes might have helped."

"Goot-bve Tippervary, hello Lezster Sqvare. It's a longk longk vey to Tippervary und meine heart stol-ther."

"Are they playing for laughs or what? A terrible comedic disappointment from start to finish."

After having early success in attacking British ships, they get hit and get 'holed'. However they find the hole, block it using German ingenuity, and float again. They manage to limp home into port but the Allied airforce bomb everything, and sink the U Boat again.

A botty numbing movie in which we get to witness German engineering coming to the surface, sinking, coming to the surface quickly once more, going below the surface quickly again, and then slowly limping up again before going down in a cloud of bubbles, like a very bombed really bad puppy, right at the end.

A claustrophobic journey into Nazidom, the likes we have rarely seen before. Has all of the unwashed dirty fingernails one would expect, and, thankfully, we are saved from that horribly salty smelling 'muskiness' that such a man-soiled submarine under stress would undoubtedly ooze.

But, thankfully, those evilly ordinary Nazi's get their comeuppance, if indeed that is the correct phraseology of the bubbly-sinking at the end (godownance? Ho Hum!)

Some of the periscope scenes had one wondering if they had run out of money in the special effects department, presumably choosing to film that bit in a bath at home (but, thankfully, remembering to remove all plastic ducks before the camera rolled, although keeping in some of the bubbles). However, all-in-all this is a triumphantly moody production fully deserving of its proud position in world cinema.

When shown on British commercial television the fully uncut version ran for 3 3/4 hours. Whilst this, of course, included advertisements, this movie is only for those with the sternest of bottoms.

An extremely long and claustrophobic movie. Very tense, although, obviously, you never really want our heroes to succeed. You may feel like a long soak in the tub afterwards, although make sure all the windows are open to avoid flashback type incidents.

We saw the German language version, apparently there is a dubbed English version which we are told is quite good. We couldn't comment.