FILM · 1996
Down Periscope
33 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (33)
- #001
Before Commander Dodge meets his crew, he makes a sarcastic remark suggesting they might be leftovers from World War II. His Chief Engineer Howard is played by Harry Dean Stanton. Stanton served as a cook aboard the USS LST-970 during the Okinawa campaign in World War II.
- #002
The diesel submarine used in the film is the USS Pampanito (SS 383), a World War II submarine that, as of 2024, is on public display at Pier 45 in San Francisco, California.
- #003
(About 1 hour 14 minutes) Near the end of the film, in the scene where Lieutenant Lake enters the Lieutenant Commander's quarters, she comes in, kisses Dodge, and bumps her elbow on the door as Lauren Holly exits. This was unintentional, and Kelsey Grammer's reaction nearly ruined the take. A visible bruise developed in later takes, and Grammer and Holly could not stop laughing. That was the take used in the film.
- #004
The USS Pampanito could not move under its own power. The underwater shots were scale models. The surface shots were actually the Pampanito, but as the surface wake ahead of the boat shows, it was being towed.
- #005
(About 29 minutes) When the crew takes the Stingray out for a test dive after refurbishing the boat, Commander Dodge orders a depth of 500 feet. As it descends, Lieutenant Lake says that passing 120 meters is the "crush depth." In fact, 400 feet was the "test depth" rating for Balao-class submarines. This meant the submarine was not to dive deeper than 400 feet in peacetime, roughly two-thirds of the depth for which it was designed. It can also be noted that during World War II there were many reported and accepted incidents in which submarines briefly dropped below their "crush depth" and survived relatively undamaged.
- #006
Although the film has been criticized for some of its concepts, most of the ideas underlying it are correct. Modern diesel submarines (not a retired World War II submarine) are capable of being significantly quieter than nuclear submarines running on their electric batteries. Many navies operate modern diesel submarines, and the vessels are quite effective in their roles. Experts have at various times criticized the U.S. Navy for not operating several diesel submarines in the U.S. fleet.
- #007
The end credits include the music video for the Village People's "In the Navy," with the cast in the lead role, 17 years after the song's original release.
- #008
Harry Dean Stanton's character "Howard" was a retired diesel submarine specialist Dodge brought aboard without authorization, which explains why he does not wear a Navy uniform. Many of his scenes were cut due to time constraints.
- #009
(About 7 minutes in) While Dodge and the Admiral talk right after Dodge first sees the Stingray, Dodge asks whether he should turn the submarine into a museum. The submarine used in the film, the Pampanito, is a museum located at Pier 45 in San Francisco.
- #010
(About 1 hour 26 minutes) At the end of the film, Winslow informs Dodge that he will not take command of a Los Angeles-class submarine, but will instead be given command of a Seawolf-class submarine. The Seawolf class was intended to replace the Los Angeles class. However, because of high costs, only three Seawolf-class submarines have been built to date. In the end, the U.S. Navy chose the more cost-effective Virginia class to replace the Los Angeles class.
- #011
For much of the film, LT Lake is seen wearing the Officer Surface Warfare insignia. After the Stingray finally docks at Norfolk, she can be seen wearing the Officer Submarine Warfare insignia.
- #012
This was comedian Patton Oswalt's first film.
- #013
When Pascal flies into the water while the crew is cleaning the submarine, you can see three other people in the water. These people had been thrown into the water just like Pascal, but in the film's trailer.
- #014
The scenes of the Stingray forming up among naval warships were filmed in Suisun Bay, in the Carquinez Strait near Benicia, California. The Navy warships are part of the Suisun Bay Naval Reserve Fleet, sometimes also called the "Mothball Fleet" or "Rust Navy" warships, which kept a reserve fleet after World War II and other wars and conflicts. The warships began to be gradually scrapped amid concerns about environmental damage from heavy waste leaking into the water as they slowly decayed over the more than 50 years they lay anchored in the Bay. At the time of this writing, only two of the 57 ships that had been anchored there over the years remained in the Bay. Among the ships anchored in the Bay over the years was the Glomar Explorer, which was laid up in 1977.
- #015
Admiral Winslow organized the war game. By illegally changing the rules in order to win, Admiral Graham may have violated Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice by failing to obey a lawful order (in this case, the rules set by Admiral Winslow). Such a conviction would result in an officer's discharge from the Navy, equivalent to a Dishonorable Discharge.
- #016
Patton Oswalt had to leave the shoot about two weeks early in order to take a job as a staff writer on Mad TV (1995).
- #017
The USS Stingray 161 was a Balao-class diesel submarine that was also used as the USS Swordfish 161 in the production of the film In Enemy Hands (2004), which also starred William H. Macy and Lauren Holly.
- #018
The U.S. Navy had diesel-electric submarines named USS Stingray with hull number SS-161. The real Stingray was a Salmon-class submarine with hull number SS-186, commissioned in 1938 and scrapped in 1947. The real SS-161 was an S-class submarine named S-50, commissioned in 1922, decommissioned in 1927 and scrapped in 1931.
- #019
Dodge reads Norfolk's deployment plan. One of the ships on the list is named Krasny Oktober, a reference to the submarine Red October in The Hunt for Red October. Krasny is a Russian surname meaning "red."
- #020
Early in the film, when Dodge enters Admiral Winslow's office, the two salute each other. The Navy never salutes indoors and never does so without a hat. Both men did.
- #021
The captain twice calls one of the crew "Captain Blood," a reference to the 1935 pirate film starring Errol Flynn and to Rafael Sabatini's novel.
- #022
At the very end of the film, the U.S.S. Stingray is docked and the crew walks away, with a white-hulled ship visible in the background. That ship is a 95-meter retired Cape-class U.S. Coast Guard cutter (U.S.C.G.C. Cape Romain), at the time operated by Sea Scout Ship 17, a youth program similar to the Boy Scouts, based in San Mateo, CA. The ship was placed at a pier in San Francisco to make it look more like a military base. (Most of the harbor footage was shot in the Bay Area. The mothball fleet depicted early in the film really exists and is anchored near Benicia, CA.) Cape Romain is now operated by Sea Scout Ship 51 (S.S.S. Intrepid), based in Palo Alto, CA.
- #023
The technique of a submarine following a surface ship into port to avoid detection was used in the 1943 Cary Grant film "Destination: Tokyo."
- #024
When Kelsey Grammer parks his convertible at COMSUBLANT, he is singing and ends with "thank you," just like the final title sequence of the 1993-2004 TV series Frasier.
- #025
While Admiral Graham talks with Captain Know in his office, there is a reference to an obscure naval date that announces the outcome of the film's exercise: the model ship on Graham's desk appears to be the Kniaz Suvorov, the flagship of the Russian Empire at the Battle of Tsushima during the Russo-Japanese War. That encounter was a humiliating defeat for Russia, caused by a series of errors stemming from the incompetence and arrogance of the Russian admiralty, just as Graham does in the film.
- #026
Lauren Holly says Kelsey Grammer "farted constantly" on set.
- #027
At their first meeting, Dodge tells Stepanak in front of Pascal that if he throws him overboard, he will be in the middle of the Atlantic. In the end, Dodge gets Stepanak to physically throw Pascal off the ship in the middle of the Atlantic onto a fishing boat.
- #028
The premise of the war games is that a rogue submarine would attack the U.S. Navy outside the usual rules of engagement. A JAG episode ("Enemy Below," Season 7, episode 24) would use a similar plot six years later.
- #029
Lauren Holly played the director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service on NCIS, the series in which they investigate murders and other major crimes that occur in the Navy.
- #030
Nitro (Toby Huss) wears a Bruce Lee shirt. Co-star Lauren Holly played Lee's wife Linda in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993).
- #031
Bruce Dern and Harry Dean Stanton appeared in "Big Love."
- #032
Rip Torn and Harlan Williams appeared in Freddy Got Fingered.
- #033
Commander Dodge's Chief Engineer Howard is played by Harry Dean Stanton. He also played Er Willard in Kelly's Heroes.
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