FILM 1893: K-19: THE WIDOWMAKER

FILM 1893: K-19: THE WIDOWMAKER

TRIVIA: Upon reading the film's script, the surviving crew members were so incensed that they sent an open letter to Harrison Ford, Producer/Director Kathryn Bigelow, and Producers Christine Whitaker and Steven-Charles Jaffe, expressing their dismay. Among the less-than-credible details they objected to were profane language, the animosity between the two highest-ranking commanding officers, insubordination among the crew, drunk crew members, the attempted mutiny, the guns (which are kept under seal in a secret location) and the handcuffs (which were only used by and available to cops).

The director and producers of K-19 were the first Western civilians ever allowed inside the Russian naval base at the Kola Peninsula.

The movie set of the sub was identical in size to the actual K-19 sub, thanks to the K-19 blueprints that were available to the producers. Since the sub's corridors were very narrow, the filming camera rolled along a rail system implemented on the ceiling. The rails were painted so they would blend with the sub's interiors.

The blue glow inside the nuclear reactor is known as the Cherenkov effect. In order to simulate it, the crew poured seven hundred two-liter bottles of Canada Dry tonic water and illuminated the reactor with ultraviolet light. The tonic water contains quinine, which emits a bluish glow in the presence of ultraviolet light.

According to Jacob Pitts, during one scene, the Director of Photography was having trouble getting Harrison Ford's eye line. When he asked Ford where he was looking, Ford replied that he was looking into his soul. When the DP asked him where his soul was, he replied, "Under a pile of money."

The meter used in the scene where the ships doctor is checking the radiation dosimeters by inserting them into a dosimeter reader is not actually a reader at all. It is a modified Hewlett Packard (now Agilent) HP3555A/B Transmission Level/Noise test set used by telephone and communications technicians. This actual meter was not developed by HP until several years after the K19 incident. The method for reading dosimeters at the time was to look through them (like you would a telescope) and read the progression of an indicator on a ruler like scale.

Natalya Vintilova has the only female speaking role in the whole movie.