The Cruel Sea (1953)-
The film, as a whole, felt a little bit matter of fact and lacking in excitement. Even the exciting bits seemed to be just things that happened without much drama or passion.
It's interesting that we only briefly saw the enemy in any physical way, which seemed odd for a war film and I wondered if that created a lack of danger that softened the film.
There's also a lot of extraneous detail and some individual storylines that didn't necessarily need to be included or maybe could have only been implied. Morell's girlfriend for one thing. It only needed a suggestion that dating a model was a trying experience for him.
It's quite a slow film, without any specific action, the story wasn't about sinking the Bismarck or rescuing soldiers from Dunkirk so there was no specific end to their journey as such, but it's about the days and hours spent searching for submarines that were mostly wasted.
It's a hard subject matter to build a story around, but it could probably have made a good back story for a romance. One that's more in depth, not like Lockhart's storyline, which got a bit lost amongst everything else.
Maybe it could be remade as a male on male romance, which would certainly make sense, as the Officers in this one, actually, all seemed a bit camp by todays standards. It's hard to imagine them going home to their wives and not pining for Roger the Cabin Boy and Seaman Staines.
And some of them are very hammy, as were a few of the crew, but then in balance you also had Jack Hawkins, who gave a great performance as the Captain and Denholm Elliott, who just seemed to be so effortless and immediately showed the rest up in the first moment that he appeared on screen.
I felt that Stanley Baker was trying just a bit too hard in comparison. The rest all came across well, but were nothing worth writing about.
It was very similar to In 'Which We Serve' (1942) and it would be easy to confuse the two, because they are so alike. I'm not sure that either one would warrant a return visit to watch again as there are definitely better war films out there that hit my buttons more, but actually, this one wasn't a bad film at all, not really my thing perhaps, but it's fairly well made, if a tad cluttered.
I can see that it could appeal to an older generation and certainly anyone that may have experienced the war.
292.26/1000.
The film, as a whole, felt a little bit matter of fact and lacking in excitement. Even the exciting bits seemed to be just things that happened without much drama or passion.
It's interesting that we only briefly saw the enemy in any physical way, which seemed odd for a war film and I wondered if that created a lack of danger that softened the film.
There's also a lot of extraneous detail and some individual storylines that didn't necessarily need to be included or maybe could have only been implied. Morell's girlfriend for one thing. It only needed a suggestion that dating a model was a trying experience for him.
It's quite a slow film, without any specific action, the story wasn't about sinking the Bismarck or rescuing soldiers from Dunkirk so there was no specific end to their journey as such, but it's about the days and hours spent searching for submarines that were mostly wasted.
It's a hard subject matter to build a story around, but it could probably have made a good back story for a romance. One that's more in depth, not like Lockhart's storyline, which got a bit lost amongst everything else.
Maybe it could be remade as a male on male romance, which would certainly make sense, as the Officers in this one, actually, all seemed a bit camp by todays standards. It's hard to imagine them going home to their wives and not pining for Roger the Cabin Boy and Seaman Staines.
And some of them are very hammy, as were a few of the crew, but then in balance you also had Jack Hawkins, who gave a great performance as the Captain and Denholm Elliott, who just seemed to be so effortless and immediately showed the rest up in the first moment that he appeared on screen.
I felt that Stanley Baker was trying just a bit too hard in comparison. The rest all came across well, but were nothing worth writing about.
It was very similar to In 'Which We Serve' (1942) and it would be easy to confuse the two, because they are so alike. I'm not sure that either one would warrant a return visit to watch again as there are definitely better war films out there that hit my buttons more, but actually, this one wasn't a bad film at all, not really my thing perhaps, but it's fairly well made, if a tad cluttered.
I can see that it could appeal to an older generation and certainly anyone that may have experienced the war.
292.26/1000.