Independent Films, Film Profiles

The Cruel Sea (film)

The Cruel Sea is a 1953 British film from Ealing Studios. It was directed by Charles Frend and starred Jack Hawkins and (in his first film) Sir Donald Sinden, with Denholm Elliott, Stanley Baker, Virginia McKenna and Moira Lister.It was based on the bestselling novel The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat. It is a strikingly accurate portrayal of the war between the Royal Navy and Germany's U-Boats from the viewpoint of the British naval officers and seamen who served in escort vessels during World War II, although the screenplay by Eric Ambler omitted some of Monsarrat's grimmest images.No concessions were made to the American audience, unlike (for example) The Enemy Below. This lower circulation novel on the same theme by a different author was turned into an almost equally popular film, with the British commander transformed into an American, played by Robert Mitchum.The action commences in the early months of World War II, before the Battle of the Atlantic becomes the brutal struggle it would later be. Lieutenant Commander George Ericson (Hawkins), after service in the Merchant Navy, is recalled to the Royal Navy and given command of HMS Compass Rose, a newly-built Gladiolus-class corvette intended for convoy escort duties. As in the book, his officers are mostly newly-commissioned and without experience at sea.Despite these initial disadvantages, the ship's company gains hard experience and becomes an effective fighting unit. The junior officers mature and the crew cross the Atlantic many times, escorting convoys, often in brutal weather, during the course of which they witness the sinking of many merchant vessels they are charged with protecting and the tragic deaths for the civilian crewmen. After close to three years of service, including one U-Boat almost certainly sunk, the Compass Rose is herself torpedoed and her men forced to abandon ship. Ericson survives this ordeal along with his First Lieutenant, Lockhart (Sinden), although most of the crew do not.Together with his now-promoted "number one", Ericson takes command of a new ship, HMS Saltash Castle a new Castle -class corvette (though in the film the 'skipper' refers to it as a "frigate"), and they continue the monotonous, but vital, duty of convoy escort. Late in the war, they sink one German submarine, Saltash Castle's only 'kill'. As the war ends, the ship is shown returning to port, as a guard to several German submarines that have surrendered. With the exhaustion brought on by so many years of almost endless seagoing struggle, Ericson concedes at the film's end that the only victor is the "Cruel Sea".