dr_clarke_2 Review of The Cruel Sea

The Cruel Sea (1953)

Balances patriotic fervour and the horrors of war well, but suffers from weak characterisation

[6/10 · 7 March 2021]

Charles Frend's 1953 film The Cruel Sea is based on a screenplay by Eric Ambler, which in turn is an adaptation of Nicholas Monsarrat's novel about the Battle of the Atlantic. Often cited as one of the best British war films (and rumoured to be much-loved by the Royal Navy), it follows the crew of a convoy escort ship during World War II and is notable for its depictions of the harsh reality of naval warfare; in spite of that however, it hasn't aged terribly well. The Cruel Sea opens with a voice-over that informs the audience that "The men are the heroes, the ships are the heroines. The only villain is the sea, the cruel sea", thus setting the tone for what is to follow. The story follows Jack Hawkins' Lieutenant Commander George Ericson as he is recalled to the navy to captain the HMS Compass Rose, otherwise crewed by newly-commissioned volunteers with no maritime experience. As Ericson's ship sets out on its tour of duty, the plot follows the banter between the crewmembers, before giving way to nail-biting terror of being engaged in action. There's a harrowing scene in which Ericson has to order the use of depth charges to destroy a U-boat, despite knowing that it will kill some British seamen who are floating in the water after the destruction of their ship, and later the Compass Rose is torpedo, killing most of the crew and leaving the dwindling number of survivors adrift in lifeboats, tipping the corpses of the newly dead overboard in order to increase their own chances. The finale of the film is a fifteen minute sequence of an increasingly obsessive Ericson commanding a new ship, the HMS Saltash Castle, as it hunts a U-boat in the Arctic Circle. When the U-boat is eventually damaged and the crew surrenders, Ericson notes to Lockhart that this is the first time they've actually seen the enemy in the flesh. The pair reflects that in five years they have only destroyed two U-boats and note that it feels like more, and it is to Frend's credit that the audience can entirely empathise with this. Faced with the challenge of directing a film set largely at sea, Frend does an impressive job; filmed partly on location on real (albeit decommissioned) ships and at Plymouth Naval Dockyard, it certainly looks authentic, and the studio filming meshes well with the location filming, thanks to impressive sets and filming in water tanks. The use of stock footage is effective and occasionally gives the film the feel of a docu-drama, although the model work has really not aged well. The scenes of the Compass Rose being torpedoed and sinking with most of the crew on board are extremely well shot, capturing the claustrophobic horror of the situation. The acting is generally excellent, with Hawkins giving a convincing lead performance and proving especially impressive after he's had to sacrifice the swimming seamen and a drunk, remorseful Ericson tells Lockhart how guilty he feels. After the sinking of the Compass Rose, he also convincingly conveys the trauma that Ericson suffers as a result of losing so many of the men under his command. Donald Sinden co-stars as Lockhart and is also very good, and there are strong supporting performances from the likes of Denholm Elliott and Stanley Baker. The problem with The Cruel Sea is that when Ericson and his crew aren't engaged in action, the film does rather drag. The main issue is that the characterisation is rather weak; although the cast pulls it off, everyone except Ericson and to a lesser extent Lockhart is pretty one-dimensional. Baker's obnoxious, cowardly Lieutenant Bennett is used for comic relief, but since there is little room for comedy in most of the film, he disappears very early on. Everyone else is represented by a single defining characteristic; after the film ends, they are nearly all utterly forgettable. It would be unfair to judge The Cruel Sea too harshly: for its time, it is a technically impressive production, and it achieves the feat of juggling both the horrors of war and a huge streak of patriotic fervour, finding balance between them. Nevertheless, it does suffer from an uneven pace and might have aged better if it had lost about thirty minutes of padding.