Film 2014 : The Ship That Died of Shame (1955)
Basil Dearden directs this adaptation of Nicholas Monsarrat’s novella (sixty pages, I think, in the paperback anthology of the same name which I skimmed through once many, many years ago.) This picks up on a storytelling angle which The Cruel Sea (book and film) didn’t pursue - what happens to a demobbed naval crew in peace time? For George Baker’s Randall, Captain of motor torpedo boat 1087, the answer is to drift until he meets up with his first lieutenant, again, Richard Attenborough’s slick, spivvy Hoskins. Hoskins has spotted an opportunity - buy up the now derelict 1087, refit her for pleasure cruises around Sidmouth harbour, and contract a bit of black market business on the side. Cross channel runs to ferry back brandy, counterfeit money, guns, and far far worse..
George Baker, in his first lead role, makes for a dull-but-decent, square jawed, authoritative skipper ; Attenborough relishes the flashier, edgier part of Hoskins. Meanwhile Bill Owen is down in the engine room as Birdie, the other holdover from the wartime crew, enjoying the chance to do a job he did well then once again.
A standout scene early on sees 1087 boarded by the nameless but meticulous Customs Officer - Bernard Lee, again miles away from M, shrewd, suspicious and resistant to Hoskins’ emollient offers of ‘not-yet-taxed’ brandy.
Another welcome turn comes from Roland Culver’s dodgy Major Fordyce, blackmailed by Hoskins into becoming his ‘fixer’, his voice full of weariness and noblesse oblige (“Got a bit tired of working for the plebs after fighting for them”.)
Best of all is the tense sequence smuggling a mute passenger (a discomfortingly shifty looking John Chandos) across the channel at night - a sequence of dark clouds, dark waters, muffled shouts and erratic engine noises.
John Whiting’s screenplay calls for an ambitious mix of modelwork, back projection, location and studio filming - Ealing’s water tank on Stage 3A has more of a starring role in this than Virginia McKenna does. The leads, none of whom served in the Navy during the war, convince as knowing their way around a boat - and kudos to them for suffering for their art, as several scenes require them to slip around the deck, and/or bob violently up and down, drenched to the skin.
Next Episode : The Blue Parrot
George Baker, in his first lead role, makes for a dull-but-decent, square jawed, authoritative skipper ; Attenborough relishes the flashier, edgier part of Hoskins. Meanwhile Bill Owen is down in the engine room as Birdie, the other holdover from the wartime crew, enjoying the chance to do a job he did well then once again.
A standout scene early on sees 1087 boarded by the nameless but meticulous Customs Officer - Bernard Lee, again miles away from M, shrewd, suspicious and resistant to Hoskins’ emollient offers of ‘not-yet-taxed’ brandy.
Another welcome turn comes from Roland Culver’s dodgy Major Fordyce, blackmailed by Hoskins into becoming his ‘fixer’, his voice full of weariness and noblesse oblige (“Got a bit tired of working for the plebs after fighting for them”.)
Best of all is the tense sequence smuggling a mute passenger (a discomfortingly shifty looking John Chandos) across the channel at night - a sequence of dark clouds, dark waters, muffled shouts and erratic engine noises.
John Whiting’s screenplay calls for an ambitious mix of modelwork, back projection, location and studio filming - Ealing’s water tank on Stage 3A has more of a starring role in this than Virginia McKenna does. The leads, none of whom served in the Navy during the war, convince as knowing their way around a boat - and kudos to them for suffering for their art, as several scenes require them to slip around the deck, and/or bob violently up and down, drenched to the skin.
Next Episode : The Blue Parrot