| Sinking of the Lusitania: Terror at Sea | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Docu-drama Documentary Drama |
| Creator | Coproduction of Smithson Productions and NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk), commissioned by BBC1, Discovery Channel, M6 and Channel International |
| Starring | John Hannah Kenneth Cranham Florian Panzer |
| Country | England/Germany |
| Language | English/German |
| Original channel | various channels |
| Release date | May 13, 2007 |
| Running time | 90 min |
Sinking of the Lusitania: Terror at Sea (also known as Lusitania: Murder on the Atlantic, in German: Der Untergang der Lusitania: Tragödie eines Luxusliners) is an English-German Docu-drama produced in 2007. This 90-minute film is a dramatization of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania on May 7, 1915 by a German U-boat, U-20. The outside filming was done in South Africa; the inside submarine scenes were filmed in Munich using the 25-year-old U-boat-model of the film Das Boot.
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Documentary filmmaker Christopher Spencer uncovers the truth about the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in this film that gets to the heart of the mystery by leaving no theory unexplored. May 7, 1915: The RMS Lusitania, a luxury Atlantic liner, is carrying approximately 1900 passengers and crew when a German torpedo suddenly strikes just beneath the ship's bridge. In the eighteen minutes that it took the Lusitania to sink, 1200 passengers and crewmembers perished at sea. In the aftermath of the sinking, numerous conspiracy theories began to emerge: Was the British government secretly using a passenger ship to transport explosives? Had Winston Churchill sacrificed the ship in order to draw America into a war she had been reluctant to join? Now, nearly a century later, the facts are separated from the fiction as Spencer and his researchers sort through the details on a painstaking quest to finally raise the truth up from the depths. Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide.
"Remember the Lusitania! Avenge the Lusitania!" These are the words that inspired many young Americans to volunteer for service during the First World War. The sinking of this great British oceangoing liner provoked outrage around the world on an unprecedented scale. On May 7, 1915, a German torpedo sent the ship to the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean in just 18 minutes—its speedy descent into the depths occurring far too fast for most of those aboard to make it to the lifeboats. Of the 1,962 passengers and crew on board, 1,200 were lost, including 94 children and, crucially, 128 Americans, many of whom were prominent figures. President Woodrow Wilson's neutral stance started to crack. All over America there were calls for the United States to take up arms against Germany. In many ways, the Lusitania tragedy was the major turning point of the Great War, and perhaps the single greatest factor that eventually brought America into the war in April 1917.
It aired on the Discovery channel in the US on May 13, on BBC 1 in the UK on May 27, 2007, in Germany on December 28, 2008 on ARD and on ABC1 in Australia on January 11, 2009 and the History Channel in New Zealand on February 3, 2009