DaveB

The widescreen shots of the vessels sailing together look impressive - my only criticism is that the whole thing looks too attractive. Lovely white ships, beautiful blue sky and sea.

I suppose that's why most war films made at that time were black & white. It added a spurious realism.

The other thing, of course, is that those attractive widescreen shots were completely lost on TV audiences until recently. Pan & Scan simply gave you one ship, plus the bow and stern respectively of two others.

Steve Crook

From memoirs I've read, and people I've spoken to who were in the Navy during WWII, some of it was quite pleasant (when the weather was good). There were days like that with lovely white (or battleship grey) ships, a beautiful blue sky and a calm sea.

I always advise people to watch films, especially Powell & Pressburger films, on the medium for which they were made, a big cinema screen, whenever you can. There's nothing quite like it.

In The Battle of the River Plate, as the motor launch is hoisted inboard you get a real impression of the size and power of those monsters.

Equally, with something like Black Narcissus, it's only when you've seen those mountains full size, or the light twinkling on the Irish lough in the flashback so that it fills your field of vision, that you realise why it won the awards it did.

TV just serves to remind us of the experience. And as for a pan-and-scan version, I'd almost hesitate to watch it at all.

I saw a documentary which interviewed Esmond Knight (actor in many Powell & Pressburger films) who served on the King George V. The last thing he saw clearly was the Hood exploding because the next salvo from the Bismarck landed on the King George & blinded him. But he carried on acting after the war and one of his roles was as the Captain of the Prince of Wales in Sink the Bismarck! (1960). Esmond described what is was like when they were under fire from the Bismarck, the sound of the shells in flight arriving like an express train and you couldn't be sure if they were coming for you or not.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

DaveB

Linking your initial comments back to "The Cruel Sea" (without any advance checking), the Jack Hawkins and Donald Sinden characters spent several years working as a team - and yet only faced a half-dozen dramatic incidents. The inference is that they spent most of their War cruising uneventfully around the ocean.

Steve Crook

It's possible. Not likely, but possible.

Although I wouldn't say totally "cruising uneventfully". I don't want to take anything away from the sterling work that the convoy & escort crews did.

Even on a nice day, there was still a lot of work to do, shepherding the convoy, going through drills and just working the ship. Nice weather days in the northern Atlantic do happen but not often. And of course the tension of never knowing when they were going to be attacked. So they didn't often manage to get the deckchairs out :)

There were some convoys that got across without being attacked - but not many.

Later on, having the Ultra decrypts that let them know where the wolf-packs were gathering was a huge help.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

Allan Condie

I too have struggled to work out the locations of this film. Also which ship doubled as the "Saltash Castle". When the film was made all of the Flower Class Corvettes had gone, but the Castle Class were still around - some became weather ships.

Any ideas?

Darrow

Talking about the "Yangste Incident" does anybody know the name of the Type 16 Frigate prentending to be H.M.S. Consort?

Darrow

Back to the Yangste. Read that both H.M.S. Consort and H.M.S Concord were played by the Type 16 frigate H.M.S. Teazer. Can anyone out there confirm this please?

cy_renaica

Re Compass Rose, to quote N. Monserrat from Life is a Four Letter Word, "She had been masquerading since 1943 as His Hellenic Majesty's Ship Admiral Kreizis. But she was, incredibly, the old Coroeopsis, one of my own group from the Liverpool Escort Force of 1941".
If you want NM's real wartime story, get Three Corvettes if you can.
Further to P&P and BotRP, a long time favourite since my father took me to see it brand spanking new in 1950something. Shame about the Graf Spee not lookalike (fair enough) and having to skip through a lot of the Lionel Murton stuff, but having done a good job for the RN squadron, courtesy of the RNZ and Indian Navies, the cutting / direction (?) does get confused between their Exeters, Ajaxes and Achilles sometimes. Still love it tho.
Cy

Steve Crook

There's quite a lot of close up stuff on the bridges which of course was all done in the studio, as were the shots inside the gunnery control positions. You couldn't fit a Technicolor VistaVision camera and all the lights in there. And anything that shows any serious damage to the ships will be a studio re-creation. They weren't allowed to damage the real ships that much.

But I think it's unsurpassed for giving a reasonable idea as to what a real naval battle is like.
"Ding ding, BOOM"
Then the sound of incoming shells like an approaching express train

Steve