Sub disaster film angers Russians

Harrison Ford plays the captain in "K-19: The Widowmaker"

MOSCOW, Russia -- The sub's reactor was overheating. The crew desperately fighting to stop the temperature from rising, trying to avoid a complete meltdown... an explosion... and an ecological catastrophe on par with Chernobyl.

The real-life drama was played out 41 years ago but Russian submariners are now angry at a Hollywood movie version, which they say portrays them as drunks under the command of bickering leaders.

'K-19: The Widowmaker' starring Harrison Ford opened in the U.S. on Friday while in Russia veterans of the disaster remember their comrades who died on the submarine.

One-third of the heroic K-19 crew is still alive today, still paying their respects to eight comrades who died immediately following the repair effort.

The Soviet Union covered up the 1961 accident for more than a quarter of a century. Its crew members were forbidden to talk about it.

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But they have kept their memories of how a group of brave sailors dramatically saved their sub, and perhaps the whole world, from a nuclear holocaust.

In a country still devastated by the loss of the Kursk nuclear sub two years ago, it's a sensitive issue.

K-19 was the first Soviet submarine to carry nuclear weapons. America had successfully launched its first nuclear Polaris missile submarine, the USS George Washington. Not to be left behind in the arms race, the Soviets decided to launch the K-19 before she had been completely tested.

Lt. Yuri Filin was in charge of the nuclear reactor. He solved the problem of how to get water to the reactor, preventing a meltdown. He spent 15 minutes inside the reactor compartment when the accident happened, and is lucky to be alive.

"It was a very professional, very emotional scene. You couldn't feel the radiation, but it was there in the air, in the water... everywhere. They had masks on, but they got fogged up and they had to rip them off."

The sailors that completed the bulk of the work came out forty minutes later... throwing up... foaming at their mouths. They'd received ten times the lethal dosage of radiation. They couldn't walk... they knew they were going to die... they remained strong.

Russians say the rivalry in the film between Ford and Neeson is wrong

Harrison Ford came to Russia to shoot K-19, Widowmaker, to meet the actual crew members, and to show them a script. They didn't like it.

The script, they say, depicted a ship that was always breaking down, and a crew that was always drunk and besieged by infighting. All of it untrue, they say, and told with a distinctive Hollywood feel.

The ship's commander says its his duty to defend his mens' honour and he's prepared to sue if the film is anything like the script he read.

Ship's electrician Victor Strelez told CNN: "I don't think that Americans can convey what we went through, only a Russian with a Russian mentality can convey it."

Igor Kurdin, who leads a St. Petersburg-based group of retired submariners, told Izvestia newspaper in an interview printed on Friday: "This film isn't about Russians, but about how Americans want to see Russians."

The threat to sue, Izvestia reported, is over alleged inaccuracies such as the heavy drinking habits of the submariners in the film and what they view as an incorrect portrayal of the conflict in leadership between the submarine's two top officers, played by Ford and Liam Neeson.

The film's Russian premiere is scheduled for October in St. Petersburg. Russian distributors have pledged 1 percent of the proceeds for families of victims of the K-19 accident.

The topic of a submarine accident is especially sensitive in Russia after the Kursk tragedy in August 2000, when one of the country's most advanced submarines exploded and sank, killing all 118 men aboard.

Discontent over "K-19" follows similar displeasure in Russia about overseas film portrayals of its military, such as "Enemy at the Gates," a 2001 film about the battle of Stalingrad during World War II.

If you want to know about the real story of the men of K-19, the Russians say, just ask them, they're still around.