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Jack Hawkins leads his men to war on The Cruel Sea |
Director: Charles Frend
Cast: Jack Hawkins (Lt Commander George Ericson), Donald
Sinden (Lt Keith Lockhart), John Stratton (Lt Gordon Ferraby), Denholm Elliott
(Lt John Morell), John Warner (Lt Baker), Stanley Baker (Lt James Bennett),
Bruce Seaton (PO Bob Tallow), Liam Redmond (PO Jim Watts), Virginia McKenna
(WRNS Julie Hallam), Moira Lister (Elaine Morell)
In 1953, The Cruel Sea
was a colossal hit at the UK box office. With only a few years separating
viewers from the sacrifices and struggles of war, it’s not hard to see why. The Cruel Sea is all about those
struggles and sacrifices, about carrying on and doing your duty despite it all.
But it’s also a film that understands the impact these have, and that that
stiff upper lip is often covering a trembling bottom one. That stoic front is
sometimes just that: a front.
Jack Hawkins plays Lt Commander George Ericson, commanding a
corvette on convoy duty in the Atlantic ocean. His mission? Make sure those
ships make it through and destroy U-boats wherever possible – and everything
else is secondary to that. But of course the real battle is against the cruel
sea itself: and everyone sailing on her is at threat at any moment from losing
their life. In the mid of this the men deal with losses at sea, losses at home,
and the constant pressure of always being ready to do-one’s-duty.
On the surface, The
Cruel Sea is pretty much the quintessential 50s British war movie. The
upper lips are stiff, the accents are super clipped. Everyone is pulling together,
regardless of class. Duty, king and country come before everything. But
actually, this is a more complex film than all that. The Cruel Sea drills down into the psychological cost of war, and
the impact of putting duty to the war above and beyond the needs of the regular
sailor. Protecting the convoys and taking out these u-boats come first, and if
that means sacrificing lives then it’s got to be done, regardless of the
psychological impact that might have on the guy who makes the call.
Jack Hawkins is that guy, and this role pretty much cemented
his niche in mainstream as the gruff, duty bound, slightly distant,
quintessential officer type. But Hawkins performance here is that entire
impression as a front, hiding his own doubt and guilt. During this film Ericson
not only has to deal with his first ship sinking – with a huge loss of men –
but also his decision to prioritise sinking a u-boat over saving men from a
downed convoy ship trapped in the water. The depth charges he orders lead to
the deaths of those men in the water: “bloody murderer!” screams an outraged
crewman under his command.
And bloody murderer is exactly what Ericson thinks he is.
Its’ the tough – and probably right – decision but the deaths of those sailors
don’t sit easy with him. He’s the tough captain who can make the call – but his
next shore leave sees him getting guiltily drunk and then tearfully expressing
his doubts and guilt to his second-in-command. It’s clear that the pressure of
making these calls, of sacrificing lives is something Ericson cannot wear
lightly – and Hawkins performance in these moments breaks through the reserve
of the 1940s to show a real depth of post-traumatic stress and guilt. Hawkins’
performance is raw, touching and above all real – and you feel he is expressing
the survivor guilt of a generation who had all made tough calls during nearly a
decade of war.
And The Cruel Sea
is all about those tough choices, and learning to deal with them. It’s also
about that difficult balance between life at sea and life at home. Some
families suffer terrible losses, some sailors come home to find loved ones have
been killed in the blitz, others find that their wives have failed to stay
loyal in the long months they have been away. At sea, there are more than enough
pressures and threats, and that cruel sea takes a continuous toll, which is
hard to forget.
The scenes shot at sea have a professional tension and to
them, and a really capture that sense that the most noble thing to do is to get
on with doing your duty. The officers and men keep a reserve and a
determination, as well as aiming to keep their spirits up as much as they can.
There is very little patience for those who can’t or won’t put the good of the
many first. Stanley Baker’s braggart second-in-command – an insecure stickler
for rules, who is clearly both incompetent and cowardly – is treated with
contempt and swiftly persuaded to jack it in for a spurious health reasons.
Meanwhile, the rest of the officers are decent,
hard-working, determined and put duty and the lives of others in front of their
own. Donald Sinden, underplaying (and a world away from the larger than life
characters he would go on to play) is excellent as the young officer who grows
in statue and authority, as well as having a very sweet romance with Virginia
McKenna’s WRNS officer. John Warner and a young Denholm Elliott are equally
good as young officers who have to deal with tragedy.
Because dealing with tragedy is what this film is about. The
war at sea is long, often boring and punctuated with danger and loss. The
opponent is hard to see, and the clashes with them never clean cut or open. For
years of campaigning, you can count on one hand the number of direct clashes
Ericson and his crew have with visible u-boats. Despite this, each of these
attacks carries huge costs. The war at sea is unrelenting, tough and terrible:
but also calls for men who are able to put themselves second, no matter the
cost. It’s a great look at the mentality of a whole generation: no wonder it
was such a hit.