Battle Of The River Plate
(1956)
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In 'The Battle Of The River Plate' an account of the trapping, in 1939, of the German battleship 'Graf Spee' in the South Atlantic by three British cruisers is documented. 'In Which We Serve' tells the dramatic story of a British Navy destroyer, dive-bombed in the Battle of Crete, but always gallant to the last. 'We Dive At Dawn' tells the story of the sinking of the German battleship 'Brandenberg' by the British submarine 'Sea Tiger'. Three discs. |
Though this true-life Second World War adventure hardly rates alongside A Matter of Life and Death and The Red Shoes on the CV of writing-producing-directing duo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, it is a tale well told and features some impressive location work — not least at sea in the Mediterranean. Peter Finch pulls off a noble German officer (no mean feat in a British war film, even in the 1950s), captain of pocket battleship the Graf Spee, the pursuit of which forms the basis of the action. Despite a surfeit of naval detail and some rather obvious shipboard sets, the climax in Montevideo makes it a worthwhile watch.
Halliwell's Film Guide
A sympathetic view of a German hero, Commander Langsdorff (not unexpected from these producers), is the most notable feature of this disappointingly patchy and studio-bound war epic, with too many actors in ill-defined bit parts, too undisciplined a story