Description

As can be seen in the lower right of the poster, the film is signed by Commander De Robertis, or an officer of the Italian Navy during the fascist dictatorship.
De Robertis, in his capacity as director of the Film Center at the Ministry of the Navy, specialized in naval histories, and in 1940 he was entrusted with the task of making a film starring the officers, non-commissioned officers and crew of our great cruise submarine (as you can see at the bottom of the world): Men on the bottom were born: , the first of the military tetralogy of the War on the Sea, which includes the best-known The White Ship (directed by and with Roberto Rossellini) and Alfa Tau!
The film, part of the latest films of the Fascist Propaganda Cinema, describes the sinking of the submarine A103 (the title in the foreign version is in fact SOS 103), following the collision with a steamer, and its crew, forced to complex and courageous operations to weld and re-emerge the vehicle.
In the film critics of the time, the film gained “the place of honor” among the predecessors of neorealistic cinema, given the sobriety of its almost documentary approach, the renunciation of the usual military rhetoric, the strict use of non-professional actors (all sailors of the Navy).
The manifesto very clearly illustrates the harsh reality of the marine accident and the tenacity of its protagonists, nerborut and bare-chested, but above all that of the heroic sailor Leandri, who after managing to open a valve for the pumping of air, dies intoxicated by exhaust fumes and finally lies lifeless in the arms of his companions. Despite the good conditions, the manifesto was framed because of its value.