Sailor of the King (1953)

 

               “Sailor of the King” is based on the 1929 novel by C.S. Forester.  It is also known as “Single-Handed”.  The director was Roy Boulting who co-directed with Frank Capra the famous documentary “Tunisian Victory”.  Although it has only one American in the cast (Jeffrey Hunter), it was an American production.  It was the first American film to use British ships.  Producer Frank McCarthy used his relationship with Lord Mountbatten to get Royal Navy cooperation.  The HMS Cleopatra played both the Amesbury and the Stratford.  The Cleopatra deserved some screen fame due to its participation in the Battle of Sirte where it and three other light cruisers took on the Italian battleship Littorio and a heavy cruiser.  The minelayer HMS Manxman played the German cruiser Essen.  The movie was dedicated to the Royal Navy, in particular the Mediterranean Fleet.  It starts with a quote from Horatio Nelson:  “I will be a hero -  and confiding in Providence,  I will brave every danger.”

               In 1916, Lt. Richard Saville (Michael Rennie) meets a British girl named Lucinda on a train and it is love at first sight.  They have a fling and he proposes, but she has seen enough war movie to know his career will come first.  Will her refusal to fall for that old trope figure in what happens twenty-four years later?  Stick around.  In 1940, Saville is a cruiser captain on convoy duty in the Pacific along with two other cruisers.  Saville decides to send the other two warships after the German raider Essen.  The HMS Amesbury is sunk, but manages to put a torpedo into the Essen.  The Essen rescues the only two survivors of the Amesbury, one of whom is Signalman “Canada” Brown (Hunter).  The Essen pulls into a secluded bay to do repairs, meanwhile Saville’s ship HMS Cambridge is hot in pursuit.  Someone needs to slow down the repairs so the Cambridge has time to get there.  Is there a sailor of the king available for that job?

               Remember when Jeffrey Hunter was a big star?  Well, he was, mainly because he was quite the hunk.  Ladies, he is shirtless through most of this movie.  Hunter was making only his second lead role in this movie.  He had earlier appeared in a supporting role in “The Frogmen” and over his long career, he made a lot of war movies, including “The Great Locomotive Chase”, “Sgt. Rutledge”, “Hell to Eternity”, “No Man Is an Island”, and “The Longest Day”.  He stands out in this movie, partly because he is the only American.  The acting is good overall by a good cast.  The roles they play, with the exception of Brown, are stereotypes.  The Brits are unflappable and the Germans are worthy adversaries.  The Essen’s commander is one of those “good Germans” you see in movies in the early Cold War.  Good enough to rescue a sailor who eventually leads to the sinking of his ship.  Moral of the story:  don’t rescue opponents. 

               The plot is certainly unusual.  I know of no other naval war movie that features a sniper.  It is unpredictable, other than the obvious come-uppance for the Essen.  A naval war buff certainly would not have predicted that the Amesbury would suicidally take on a superior warship instead of simply maintaining contact until reinforcements arrived.  But plenty of dots have to be connected to get Brown on a hill above the Essen with a Mauser in his hands.  It’s all to the purpose of creating an entertaining film.  It has an intriguing ending involving Lucinda who (depending on what ending you get), is either reunited with Saville to honor her live or her dead son.

               Although clearly fictional, Forester did base his book on two WWI battles.  In the first, British light cruisers took on a German heavy cruiser in the South Pacific and lost and then in a later battle, with reinforcements, got revenge off the Falkland Islands.

               I recommend this movie even if you are not interested in seeing a shirtless, sweaty Jeffrey Hunter.  Call it a date night movie, if you have the confidence to be compared to him.

GRADE  =  B-