I felt that I should correct some of the errors made in a previous review.This film was released in December 1940.The film was therefore made after the fall of France and therefore unlikely to be affected by attitudes of the Phoney War.Ealing portrayed the Nazis as buffoons well into the war.An example being The Goose Steps Out starring Will Hay.Also the end title displaying the British flag dates back to the thirties.This film is primarily a vehicle for the comedian Tommy Trinder.It is very apparent from this film that he is no actor but primarily a music hall comedian.Claude Hulbert is by far the most accomplished actor in this film.Michael Wilding is at the early stages of his career and it shows.I wondered if this film was maybe inspired by the sinking of the Graff Spew off Montivideo.Anyway it is fairly uninspired.In fact Ealings most famous war film was Went The Day Well which is still screened today unlike this film which is very much forgotten.
4 Reviews
Amusing war time comedy
georgewilliamnoble26 November 2021
Tommy Trinder the popular music hall and radio star of the thirties and forties leads the cast of this typical British war time froth which pokes fun at the enemy in a light knock about lark with a few songs thrown in. The movie is of coarse complete nonsense but represents what was showing down at the Ritz during the early war period.
Typical music hall style British film
bob the moo5 October 2003
The crew of a British destroyer are dispatched to search the Atlantic and sink a German destroyer doing great damage to the British fleet. After several luckless months at sea the ship docks in South America where three of the crew get a little distracted by one of the trio's sister, about to leave the area for England, and end up stranded and drunk when their ship sails. Drunkenly they row after it but accidentally board a different ship that is secluded near the port unfortunately it is the very German destroyer they were looking for. After trying to blend in they are unmasked as British and locked up. However the brave spirit makes them look for ways to capture the ship themselves and sail it for England.
Opening with a musical number that is right out of George Formby's act this film sets itself out as a film that harks back to the music hall style of humour and entertainment. The plot doesn't really matter as it is merely an excuse for a lot of running around etc. My biggest problem with it was the length of time it took for the film to get going and get the sailors on the German ship. However once on the humour is average all cheeky chappie stuff with plenty of plucky British lads taking on the humourless and stern Germans etc. There is nothing to amazing here but I found it amusing to see a film very much of it's time that has stayed in the period never to be seen again!
The cast are all pretty much just playing characters as they would have done on the stage like I said, they are all plucky English lads etc. The support cast play a variety of clichés and stereotypes to reasonable effect but to be honest the film never aspires to be anything more than a patriotic bit of clowning where the Germans get what for from `the lads'!
Overall this was an average film at best nothing really stuck in my mind from it but it wasn't awful. After a while the protracted clowning got a bit repetitive but it was short enough to just about hang together till the end.
Opening with a musical number that is right out of George Formby's act this film sets itself out as a film that harks back to the music hall style of humour and entertainment. The plot doesn't really matter as it is merely an excuse for a lot of running around etc. My biggest problem with it was the length of time it took for the film to get going and get the sailors on the German ship. However once on the humour is average all cheeky chappie stuff with plenty of plucky British lads taking on the humourless and stern Germans etc. There is nothing to amazing here but I found it amusing to see a film very much of it's time that has stayed in the period never to be seen again!
The cast are all pretty much just playing characters as they would have done on the stage like I said, they are all plucky English lads etc. The support cast play a variety of clichés and stereotypes to reasonable effect but to be honest the film never aspires to be anything more than a patriotic bit of clowning where the Germans get what for from `the lads'!
Overall this was an average film at best nothing really stuck in my mind from it but it wasn't awful. After a while the protracted clowning got a bit repetitive but it was short enough to just about hang together till the end.
A great wartime morale boosting Comedy
MartynGryphon12 June 2023
Warning: Spoilers
It is December 1940, the Soviets were still allied with the Germans, France had fallen, the Americans had yet to even dip a toe in the Atlantic and Great Britain stood alone against the Nazi threat. The evacuation of the BEF from Dunkirk was still fresh in the minds of the British people, but on the plus side, we had already won The Battle of Britain, but British filmmakers had already realised that a movie camera was just as an effective weapon of war as any tank, bomb, ship or rifle.
The British film Industry was kept busy throughout the war years churning out morale boosting propaganda at a rate of knots. These wonderful films took many forms from espionage dramas, military spectacles and for a nation that desperately wanted something to laugh it in such dark times, we still had some comedy.
One such movie was Sailor's Three from Ealing Studios, a film designed to showcase the talents of a then up and coming comic named Tommy Trinder. Trinder plays one of a trio of Able Seamen of the Royal Navy with Claude Hulbert (Jack's Brother), and Michael Wilding making up the other two. Their ship HMS Ferocious is scouring the Atlantic Ocean looking for a German pocket Battleship The Ludendorff with orders to sink her on sight.
After four months at sea, they put into a South American port to refuel and the ship's complement get shore leave. After imbibing a little too much on South American 'hospitality' our trio overstay their pass and in an effort to get back to their ship, they arrange a lift with the local harbour pilot to take them to the Ferocious.
However, they are too drunk to notice that the ship the harbour pilot has steered them to is the elusive Ludendorff. (How drunk the Ludendorff's officer of the watch and lookouts must have been not to notice the approaching boat with three British sailors aboard is never explained).
Trapped on board an enemy ship, it is not too long before they're captured, but being British, they have no intention of sitting around as prisoners waiting for the war to end and hatch a plan along with a friendly Austrian crew member of the Ludendorff, (James Hayter), to take the entire ship from the German officers and crew and sail her to England, hopefully before their own ship sees her and opens fire.
Not surprisingly for a wartime film, made at a time when the true atrocities of the Third Reich were still not widely known, the Germans are portrayed here with little dignity and are shown to be incompetent buffoon's and comic foils and they do a great job trying to convince us that it is entirely possible for a whole crew of an enemy battleship to be subdued by just three British Sailors and those are the odds we Brits like.
Trinder is also given a couple of catchy songs to jolly us along and whilst Wilding, (by far the most accomplished 'actor' of the three leads), is given little to do, Hulbert is an absolute scream.
Not perfect in anyway, but a very enjoyable bit of fluff that must have left British wartime audiences of the time reassured that the best Navy in the world really did rule the waves.
Enjoy!
The British film Industry was kept busy throughout the war years churning out morale boosting propaganda at a rate of knots. These wonderful films took many forms from espionage dramas, military spectacles and for a nation that desperately wanted something to laugh it in such dark times, we still had some comedy.
One such movie was Sailor's Three from Ealing Studios, a film designed to showcase the talents of a then up and coming comic named Tommy Trinder. Trinder plays one of a trio of Able Seamen of the Royal Navy with Claude Hulbert (Jack's Brother), and Michael Wilding making up the other two. Their ship HMS Ferocious is scouring the Atlantic Ocean looking for a German pocket Battleship The Ludendorff with orders to sink her on sight.
After four months at sea, they put into a South American port to refuel and the ship's complement get shore leave. After imbibing a little too much on South American 'hospitality' our trio overstay their pass and in an effort to get back to their ship, they arrange a lift with the local harbour pilot to take them to the Ferocious.
However, they are too drunk to notice that the ship the harbour pilot has steered them to is the elusive Ludendorff. (How drunk the Ludendorff's officer of the watch and lookouts must have been not to notice the approaching boat with three British sailors aboard is never explained).
Trapped on board an enemy ship, it is not too long before they're captured, but being British, they have no intention of sitting around as prisoners waiting for the war to end and hatch a plan along with a friendly Austrian crew member of the Ludendorff, (James Hayter), to take the entire ship from the German officers and crew and sail her to England, hopefully before their own ship sees her and opens fire.
Not surprisingly for a wartime film, made at a time when the true atrocities of the Third Reich were still not widely known, the Germans are portrayed here with little dignity and are shown to be incompetent buffoon's and comic foils and they do a great job trying to convince us that it is entirely possible for a whole crew of an enemy battleship to be subdued by just three British Sailors and those are the odds we Brits like.
Trinder is also given a couple of catchy songs to jolly us along and whilst Wilding, (by far the most accomplished 'actor' of the three leads), is given little to do, Hulbert is an absolute scream.
Not perfect in anyway, but a very enjoyable bit of fluff that must have left British wartime audiences of the time reassured that the best Navy in the world really did rule the waves.
Enjoy!
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