The Baby and the Battleship

The Baby and the Battleship - 1956 | 96 mins | Comedy | Colour

The Production Team

Director: Jay Lewis.
Producer: Antony Darnborough and Jay Lewis.
Script: Richard De Roy, Bryan Forbes, Gilbert Hackforth-Jones and Jay Lewis. (from the novel by Anthony Thorne)
Cinematography: Harry Waxman.
Editing: Manuel del Campo.
Art Direction: John Howell.
Makeup Department: David Aylott and Ida Mills.
Original Music: Humphrey Searle and James Stevens.

The Cast

John Mills - Puncher Roberts
Richard Attenborough - Knocker White
André Morell - Marshal
Bryan Forbes - Prof. Evans
Michael Hordern - Capt. Hugh
Ernest Clark - Cmdr. Geoffrey Digby
Harry Locke - CPO Blades
Michael Howard - Joe
Lionel Jeffries - George
Thorley Walters - Lt. Setley
Kenneth Griffith - Sub-Lieutenant
John Le Mesurier - The Marshal's Aide
Gordon Jackson - Harry

Plot Synopsis

Those grand old knights of British cinema Richard Attenborough and John Mills had sailed together earlier, in David Lean's directorial debut In Which We Serve (1942), but this gentle farce is a sadly leaky vessel by comparison. A warm blast of innocent nostalgia.

Hapless sailor Knocker White (John Mills) is literally left holding the baby after a family mix-up with a baker's daughter (Lisa Gastoni) on the quayside at Naples. Knocker is faced with little alternative but to smuggle the Italian child on board his warship HMS Gillingham. During Nato exercise at sea, Knocker and his partner in deception, Puncher (Richard Attenborough), conspire to keep their captain (Michael Hordern) in the dark about their tiny stowaway below decks.