The Cruel Sea (1953)
Tuesday, February 7 @ 03:15 PM (ET)
A British-made adaptation of Nicholas Monserrat's classic book directed by Charles Frend (Scott of the Antarctic, Lease of Life) this movie features one of the greatest performances of Jack (*sigh*) Hawkins as the conflicted captain of a small corvette, the H.M.S. Compass Rose--but please give it some time--it takes awhile to see how complex the relationships are among the crew and the toll on the captain's spirit as time goes on. Denholm Elliot, Stanley Baker and Donald Sinden are among the men facing long odds and enormous stress on their humanity in their work in the North Atlantic. Virginia McKenna and Moira Lister are also among the cast--Lister is particularly interesting. You don't have to be a war movie fan to be moved by this compelling story, which earned Eric Ambler an Oscar nomination for Best Writing, Screenplay. (Hawkins won a BAFTA as Best Actor, and the film won for Best British Film and Best Film from any Source in the following year. The Cruel Sea is available on DVD, (and has recently been issued on Blu-Ray in the UK) but the high price may make it more desirable to crank up the DVR or VCR. Below is the trailer:
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Decision Before Dawn (1951)
Tuesday, February 7 @ 08:00 PM (ET)
Oskar Werner appears in one of his first international roles. Under the strong direction of Anatole Litvak (City for Conquest, Anastasia), the actor gave a deeply moving performance in this story of a former German soldier and now an Allied POW who agrees to act as an American spy just as the Third Reich began to collapse, leaving all the citizenry and the military spiritually and socially fractured. The sensitive Werner, working with US Army military intelligence men Richard Basehart and Gary Merrill, returns to German-held territory and must cope with his own guilt, fear and paranoia as he makes his way through the terrible disarray that surrounds him. There is excellent work from Werner as well as a very young Hildegarde Knef and O. E. Hasse (familiar to many from Hitchcock's I Confess and Seaton's The Big Lift). This movie was nominated for Oscars for Best Film Editing by Dorothy Spencer and as Best Picture. Anatole Litvak was recognized by the DGA for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures and Franz Planer won a Golden Globe for his stark black and white cinematography.
According to Werner's biography, he may have brought his personal experiences to this role. Drafted into the Wehrmacht despite his pacifism, Werner was married to a half-Jewish actress, Elizabeth Kallina, an untenable position as the war went on and their daughter, Elinore, was born in 1944. Near the closing days of the war, Werner went AWOL, and lived surreptitiously with his wife and infant in the Vienna Woods, foraging for food and dodging both the Russians and Germans while Vienna was devastated by invaders and occupiers. Decision Before Dawn may be one of the best films to characterize the war as a necessary but cataclysmic human tragedy seen through the eyes of one of the best post-war actors. A DVD of this movie is readily available at an affordable price but you can see the entire film (with Spanish subtitles) here and an excellent fan-made trailer is below.
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