Mount Kyle Ingo Mogendorf as Lieutenant Voght, Submarine Executive Officer Harry Fielder as German Sub Crewman George Roubicek as U-boat Crewman Differences between film and book Murphy is one of his ship's officers in the novel, but his film counterpart is a mechanic for the seaplane. The character of Lieutenant Ellis is not featured in the novel. Dr. Hayden is a composite of several doctors from the novel. Louis is a self-loathing deserter from the French military in the book but a jovial company man in the film. The submarine crew is portrayed more sympathetically in the novel. Most of them are war-weary and apolitical, save for Lieutenant Voght, who seizes command and murders Murphy's crew while the captain is incapacitated by a head wound. The book's end is quite different to that of the film. In the book, when Murphy drops the torpedo, it splits the sub in half and inadvertently allows most of the trapped crewmen to swim to the surface and survive. An injured Vought cannot reach shore and is carried away by the current to his death. Murphy also avoids death during the crane operation. Murphy and Captain Lauchs briefly fight each other on the beach before sinking to the ground in exhaustion. Production In 1969, Frank Sinatra was recruited to star in the film, but he withdrew from the project. Paramount Pictures agreed to provide half of film's financing in exchange for world-distribution rights. The other half of the budget came from London Screenplays, a finance company. Michael Deeley has said that he and Peter Yates declined the chance to produce The Godfather (1972) in order to make Murphy's War. Yates said that he was particularly interested in "the way in which three people—Murphy, a doctor and a Frenchman left in the backwash of war—are really brought together by circumstance and how each character plays on the other and makes them do things that they wish they hadn't and things they sometimes feel proud of." Siân Phillips, who plays Dr. Hayden, was appearing opposite her husband Peter O'Toole. The couple had appeared together in the 1964 film Becket and the 1969 musical film Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Filming began on 23 February 1970 and was completed with location shooting in Malta on 5 July. Filming occurred at locations in the regions of Puerto Ordaz and Castillos de Guayana on the Orinoco River in Venezuela, and on