This film begins in 1812 with American sailors being forcibly taken off of merchant ships and pressed into duty to help man the British navy. Needless to say, this action infuriates the American government which eventually declares war on Great Britain. That being said, realizing that the American navy was no match for their British counterparts, the French government--who are rivals of the British--comes up with a plan to give the United States $10 million in gold to help them produce some warships of their own. The problem, however, is that in order to collect the gold, an American ship has to sail through the British blockade and collect it in Paris. Once that is accomplished, the American ship then needs to sail past that same blockade and back into an American port. To that effect, an American officer by the name of "Captain James Marshall" (Mark Stevens) is ordered to do just that. However, realizing the difficulty in accomplishing such a mission, he requests the help of his former superior "Captain Ben Waldridge" (Patric Knowles). Although the request is granted, it comes with a certain amount of skepticism as Captain Waldridge has recently acquired a bad reputation for unsavory conduct and he isn't held in high regard for that reason. For his part, Captain Waldridge agrees to serve as First Officer under two conditions. The first is that he gets to recruit his own men to man the guns on the ship. The second condition is that he be granted the necessary time to find his former lover "Leslie" (Angela Lansbury) who currently resides in Paris. Since neither of these issues seem that important, Captain Marshall immediately agrees. What he doesn't realize, however, is the problem each of these conditions will create once they are met. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was a pretty standard adventure movie which managed to fill the time well enough but lacked the necessary excitement or suspense to make me consider rating it any higher than I have. Average.
