Sailor of the King (1953)

Director:  Roy Boulting

Writers:  C.S. Forester, Valentine Davies

Composer:  Clifton Parker

Starring:  Jeffrey Hunter, Michael Rennie, Wendy Hiller, Bernard Lee, Peter van Eyck, Victor Maddern, John Horsley, Patrick Barr, Robin Bailey

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  The greatest story of the sea by today's greatest storyteller!

Plot:  In 1940, Canadian sailor Andrew Brown is prisoner on a battle damaged German raider and he plans to delay the raider's at-sea repairs until a British naval task-force can destroy it.

My rating:   7.5/10

Will I watch it again?   YES!

SNIPIN' SPOILERS AHEAD!!!  YARRRRRRR!!!

The film starts out during WWI with a sappy romance when a soldier (Rennie as Richard Saville) meets a girl (Hiller as Lucinda Bentley) before going abroad with the two falling in love in the hours/days before his departure.  They speak of marriage but it never happens.  Did they do the nasty?  It's possible but not all that hinted at.  This happens in the first fifteen minutes and it's pretty by the numbers lovey-dovey stuff of its time.  Cut to more than twenty years later and Saville is an admiral commanding a fleet in WWII.  This is where the film kicks into gear and gets interesting.  Saville is hell-bent on sinking a German warship, the Essen, and he makes the call for one of his ships to hold their position until the fleet arrives.  That ship is destroyed, leaving only two survivors that end up as prisoners on the Essen in sick bay, Earnshaw (Maddern) and Brown (Hunter).  The Essen is damaged and seeks shelter in a small cove, hidden from the sea and Brown gets the crazy idea to steal a rifle and an inflatable boat and secure himself on the cliff overlooking the Essen, shooting those who attempt at repairing the ship in an effort to delay them long enough for the rest of the fleet to find them.  THIS is pretty damn intense and makes for one hell of a show!  

The first, short, act is by the numbers romantic BS.  Get past that and you've got yourself a pretty damn good action thriller.  The performances are very good, especially from Hunter (who goes shirtless and hunky from the time he ditches the German vessel).  

 

 

The direction during the standoff is tight and tense.  This is some really good shit and well worth a watch.  It is weird, though, with the first act feeling tacked on considering the rest of the movie ALMOST has nothing to do with it.  The ending is upbeat and only slightly hints at something possibly relating to Hiller as it's said by Brown that he has a mother and Hiller was in the beginning of the film which are the only two time a woman is either shown or spoken of.  Are we supposed to draw the conclusion that Brown is Saville's son?  Yeah, I think so.  It's really driven home (and emotionally so) when you watch the alternate ending found on the DVD which changes Brown's fate.  Yeah, I choked up a bit.  The alternate ending at least ties her to the story in such a way that more so justifies the first fifteen minutes.  Without it, you're left scratching your head a little bit wondering what the point was except either it was bad writing, filler or studio intervention.  All of those things are still possible but it makes more sense that there's a bigger, more intimate story here.  Regardless, the action/standoff portion is well-handled and worth watching.   Drop the opening BS and this is easily an 8/10.