San Demetrio, London – 1943 | 104 mins | War | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Ealing’s last film to be presented in 1943 was another war film in which a small group of men face incredible hardship with unquestioning courage, submerging individual and national differences so that the team can win through. It was a true story, the reconstruction of an epic voyage of an oil tanker which, although so badly damaged it is abandoned, is reboarded later by its crew and brought home to port. San Demetrio London was directed by Charles Frend, with Robert Hamer as the associate producer, and they both wrote the screenplay from the official narrative of the original exploit by F. Tennyson Jesse.

After drifting in a lifeboat for three days, several members of the crew decide that their chances are better on their old ship, which is floundering in mid-Atlantic. They succeed in putting the fires out, patching up the engines sufficiently to limp on to their port of destination, Greenock. As they make their way up the Clyde they proudly refuse the offer of a tow. Without realising it, they have made themselves eligible for salvage money, and the last scene shows them in court receiving a shared award of £14,000 for their efforts. The judge says: ‘It has given me the best working day of my life in listening to the very modest recital of some gallant gentlemen concerning a memorable achievement.’

The earlier common assumption of leadership and superiority that distinguishes the officers from the lower decks in Convoy and Ships with Wingshas been replaced by a democratic consensus – the big decisions of whether to board the tanker or not and whether to attempt to get it back to England are reached collectively. It is almost as if Ealing is saying that the officer class has let Britain down, and that it is amongst them that the spies (The Foreman Went to France), the quislings (Went the Day Well?) and the pompous stuffed shirts (Ships with Wings) can be found.

Balcon regarded San Demetrio London not only as an epic story of endeavour but also as a way of reminding the public of the perils of Merchant Navy service. Petrol was desperately short, yet a black market flourished, enabling some people to evade rationing. It was in this climate that a Philip Zec cartoon in the Daily Mirror, which showed a torpedoed seaman alone on a raft with the caption “The price of petrol has been increased by One Penny – Official”, was interpreted by the Cabinet as unpatriotic and nearly caused the papers closure.

Extract© George Perry: Forever Ealing.