A sterling, old-fashioned war film of the type too readily devalued these days. Jack Hawkins gives perhaps his most notable performance as the captain of a Royal Navy corvette, suggesting as much life above as below that stiff upper lip, while Eric Ambler's adaptation of Nicholas Monsarrat's book gives the minnows their due as the enlisted men face storms and German U-boats with more courage than experience. Best of all, Frend's documentary style puts us smack in the middle of the Atlantic - the cruel sea indeed.

Excerpt from TimeOut Film guide located HERE

Based on Nicholas Monsarrat's best selling novel, which was in turn derived from his experiences on the North Sea convoys, The Cruel Sea is set in the middle of â€the battle of the Atlantic', as the U-boats attempted to destroy British shipping lanes and starve the country into surrender. The film follows the men of the Compass Rose, a small corvette protecting the merchant shipping, as they deal with the unseen menace of the submarines and the pressures of life at sea.

The film rejects a conventional narrative structure in favour of a more episodic treatment of its subject. It also rejects the conventional Boy's Own heroics; it never glosses over the horrors of war and shows that these horrors can have consequences. Captain Jack Hawkins has to live with the guilt he feels after making some difficult decisions and likeable characters die needlessly.

Excerpt from Channel 4 located HERE