Gift Horse (1952)

 

            The British WWII movie “Glory at Sea” was shown in American theaters as “Gift Horse”.  The American title was more appropriate because it is a reference to the phrase:  “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”  This fits a WWI American destroyer that was loaned to Britain in the destroyers for bases deal.  With the Battle of the Atlantic raging, the British could not be particular when it came to convoy escorts.  The film was directed by Compton Bennett.  It did not do well at the box office in America.

            The movie was dedicated to the 50 destroyers given to Great Britain before the U.S. entered the war.  The now HMS Ballantrae was turned over at Halifax, Canada.  It will have an inexperienced crew with a hard-luck captain.  Capt. Fraser (Trevor Howard) has been pulled from retirement.  It was a forced retirement due to a court-martial, so we have a redemption arc.  The ship is put on convoy duty.  The convoy has to leave it behind because an engine breaks and for hours they are a sitting duck for u-boats.  And it leaks.  Fraser is your typical strict captain that insists on the crew busting their ass to make the ship perform better than it looks.  He postpones shore leave to make the ship ship-shape.  Naturally, he is not popular with the crew.  And there is dysfunction with his executive officer.  If that’s not enough cliches, the crew gets into a bar fight with another crew. Hey, only we can say bad things about our shitty captain.   (There’s going to be another bar fight.) 

            The narrative follows a standard British destroyer template.  It is similar to “The Cruel Sea” which means it covers a series of realistic convoy escort incidents.  The Ballantrae deals with a u-boat and is attacked by German planes.  What sets it apart is the ship is a Jonah with a captain that doesn’t exactly have a stirling reputation.  In spite of this, the captain and crew volunteer for a suicide mission!  The Admiralty believes that because the ship is good at running into things, he will be used to ram into German dry dock in France.  Although the ship needs to be put out of its misery, it would seem an unlikely choice for an important mission.  And you would think Fraser would not be high on the list of potential captains.  But this is a war movie, not a documentary.  The final 20 minutes is based on the famous St. Nazaire Raid with the Ballantrae playing the role of the HMS Campeltown. 

            “Gift Horse” is not as good as “The Cruel Sea” and “In Which We Serve”, but it is a worthy example of the Battle of the Atlantic subgenre.  It is full of the cliches that mark the nautical subgenre and war movies in general.  Besides the strict, but fair captain in need of redemption and the bar fights, we get the hard-luck ship that dies heroically.  One of the crew loses his family to the Blitz.  It’s competently done by a great cast.  Howard is fine as the captain.  He could do stiff upper lip in his sleep.  Fraser has an interesting, if predictable, back-story.  The crew gets some coverage because the movie is not all about command.  There is a pair of mates that provide some humor, or what passes for humor in a British WWII movie.

            The main reason for watching it is for the raid.  The convoy duty is realistic, for an old tub.  There is not a whole lot of it.  “Greyhound” it ain’t.  It saves most of the action for the raid.  The concluding act is exciting.  It is about as good a reenactment of Operation Chariot as you could hope for using models.  The sound effects and explosions are nicely done.  It’s worth the wait, but we still do not have the definitive movie on the St. Nazaire Raid.  However, “Gift Horse” is better than “Attack on the Iron Coast”.  It is an entertaining film with a lot of quality British thespians, including James Donald, Richard Attenborough, and Bernard Lee.

GRADE  =  B