I got acquainted with the work of the writer L. Platov, reading at the age of 12 the story “There is no limit” about the struggle of a captured Soviet intelligence officer with a Nazi chemistry professor. The professor’s secret laboratory tested inmates with a gas that caused unaccountable panic and terror. I remember the scout’s visit to the professor’s office, where a portrait of the Fuehrer hung with the inscription: “Adolf Hitler to Professor Belschke.” The world can only be ruled by fear!
Unfortunately, the story “The Secret Fairway” was not finished by me then; but, recalling those teenage impressions of what I read, even now I feel some confusion – how accurate was the writer in describing the underbelly of the secrets of the Third Reich, as if he were the same scout in the enemy’s lair! I remember the first time my grandparents watched this movie. After all, my grandfather served in those places and on a torpedo boat during the war, and my father was born after the war in Pillau (now Baltiysk).
Of course, the film does not repeat the book word for word. It is adapted, so to speak, for a wide range of viewers, including young people. After all, the detective-adventure aspect is one of the main components of the plot. That is why the main character (A. Kotenev) remains alive - in the name of fighting the Nazi submarine and its crew. Struggle, tense and terrible, took away the beloved woman (L. Guzeeva). The seeming injustice, which hurts the audience, is somehow justified by the need to show the true face of war, where the full happy ending had too few prerequisites for universal reality.
The Flying Dutchman is not just an enemy submarine to be destroyed. It is not only a receptacle of fascist submariners losing their human appearance, led by an obsessed captain. This boat is like the personification of all Nazism, which brought incalculable disasters to mankind. She took away the main character of life, the only beloved person on the whole Earth. It destroyed in an instant the unfortunate citizens of a neutral country, who became unwitting witnesses of its appearance in the tropics. It was she who was the link in transporting new technologies to the Third Reich from those who were behind the financing and preparation of the World War. And finally, it almost became a salvation for the Nazi bosses who tried to escape the wrath of the peoples to the ends of the world. The liquidation of the Flying Dutchman is not a simple matter of honor or the satisfaction of the hunter’s excitement. Shubin is not Captain Ahab, who gave his whole life to the eternal pursuit of Moby Dick; and the concept of “hunter-victim” for him did not become the unity and struggle of opposites. It is simply unacceptable for Shubin to live in the same world with the Flying Dutchman and there is certainly no place for both of them on the same planet.
Therefore, Shubin is ready to follow the trail as long as necessary, without fatigue and fear. And at the end of the film, hearing “voices from the other world”, he understands that Gerhard von Zvishen (W. Dumpis) is not going to end his war, which means that it is too early to talk about peace.
Very successful selection of actors. I am convinced that L. Platov, had he lived to the film adaptation of his story, would have remained completely satisfied. Performers of the main roles A. Kotenev and L. Guzeeva - as an exact copy of the heroes of the book - brave naval officer Shubin and proud beauty Victoria. Without the young Lastikov (untimely gone V. Bogatyrev), the film would not have enough warmth, too.
The crew of the "Flying Dutchman" ... involuntarily begs the thought - well, who in those years would have tried to invite to the role of the Germans not the Baltics, but actors of other nationalities? As a friend once joked after watching the film: “Everything is predictable, it’s surprising that the director did not invite A. Masiulis to the film as the main fascist of the All Union and U. Lieldige?” They were really missing here.” One way or another, Uldis Dumpis depicted not only the determination, professionalism, personal bravery of Captain von Zwischen, but also his cold-blooded cruelty and obsession. And in the game of other “crew members”, the viewer sees not just a bunch of bloodthirsty Nazi savages stupefying from cruelty; but people bound by oath to the cruel regime, “buried” themselves on orders at the beginning of the war, and remained for many months under water with their fears, dreams, hopes and complexes.
One minus is the same flirty song about “my dear”, performed not only by one Shubin, but almost by the entire fleet of the Baltic Fleet.
In a word, 10 out of 10.