Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4773 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-09-15
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Formats: Black & White, PAL
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 138 minutes

Synopsis
An engrossing account of the sinking of the British destroyer HMS Torrin during the Battle of Crete. Three survivors on a raft recount their lives aboard the sunken vessel.

Customer Reviews

A GREAT British film
This is without a doubt one of my favourite ever British films. Undoubtedly it is pure propaganda, made at the height of World War Two, but somehow it manages to rise above this and just become fabulously entertaining. Some people can be turned off by Noel Coward and Celia Johnson's "fraightfully posh" performances as Captain Kinross (Captain "D" as he's known to his crew) and his wife, but if you look beyond that you find a terrifically good film with some powerful and moving scenes that stick in the mind long, long after the film is over: The tragedy of Bernard Miles Petty Officer's homecoming; Young Richard Attenborough as a youthful seaman running scared from his post and having to come to terms with the consequences of it; Sir John Mills as "Shorty" Blake tending to the injured and his homecoming after being missing presumed dead; Captain D's emotional farewell to his crew that makes many a stiff upper lip tremble - and many more tiny moments that just make this a true classic of it's kind. The fact that it was co-directed by its star and David Lean means that some of the photography is superb, especially when you consider what was happening in the real world during production.
This Carlton edition also includes a short documentary about the making of the film (in which, amongst other things, you learn why a certain Mr William Hartnell does not appear in it!) and other minor extras like biographies and a trailer.

"Funny to think this is such a little island, isn't it?"
Opportunities to see Noel Coward recite Noel Coward were necessarily inhibited by his death, but he has left among his filmed artifacts this stunning little achievement, perhaps the quietest war film, probably the most British. To be sure, it veers maudlin once or twice, and the whole production is suffused with the blood of righteousness - but not self-righteousness. This is the kind of movie that makes me want to join the Navy, I who get seasick in the bath.

How does a middle-aged homosexual song-and-dance man support the war effort? By producing a bang-up answer to Wyler and Ford, a vivid recruitment poster for the side of decency and respect. Brutal, tender, horrible, and full of hope, IN WHICH WE SERVE sings the victory song of both shellfire and home fire without mention of glory or distinction. Noel Coward's acting is a marvel of disinterested conviction. Nobody could speak faster, or with more precision, and that with the stiffest of upper lips.

No one wrote dialog at once so arch and comfortable, either, except maybe Kipling. Coward celebrates the most sophisticated level of civilization, the blithe, eloquent man of society who has managed not to become jaded. He embraces his England with a respectfully familiar pinch on the cheek, and he kisses her with the most restrained of passions in front of the children. But he also loves with all his heart the simple proletarian bedrock from whence he sprang, and he allows the working classes to display as much humanity and emotion as he denies his own character.

There is much stage-like, not to say stagey, in the production, which shouldn't be very surprising given its principal antecedents. The film is sometimes expressionistic in design, the angles and sets a terrifying collage of unsettling, theatrical images in contrast to the reassuring tea cozy and the ramrod-straight captain on the quarterdeck. The symbols are profoundly simple and the effect is disarmingly true.

As Coward says over a drink, "Perfect; it's not a bit too sweet." Well, it is rather, but mix another pitcher of Bovril and sherry and don't complain, there's a good chap.

stilted drama doesn't deserve its status
As someone who loves black and white films and enjoys a good war movie, I have to tell you that this is a terribly disappointing film. Noel Coward is not a good film actor and the film has no dramatic tension - the destroyer Torrin is sunk in the opening few minutes, and the remainder of the film is a series of flashbacks. All of the characters are stereotypes - the jokey sailor, the stiff-upper-lip captain - but they are too crudely drawn for us to identify with or enjoy any of them. It's hard to understand today how this film has achieved the iconic status it has - it's not a patch on films made in the subsequent decade such as The Cruel Sea [DVD] [1953] or Ice Cold In Alex [DVD] [1958]. As a piece of propoganda the film is interesting for what it tells us about attitudes of the day, but I found it impossible to enjoy as a film.