Sink the Bismarck!

Production: 20th Century-Fox. Director Lewis Gilbert; Producer John Brabourne; Screenplay Edmund H. North; Camera Christopher Challis; Editor Peter Hunt; Music Clifton Parker; Art Director Arthur Lawson
Crew: (B&W) Widescreen. Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1960. Running time: 97 MIN.
With: Kenneth More Dana Wynter Carl Mohner Laurence Naismith Karel Stepanek Maurice Denham

Sink The Bismarck! is a first-rate film re-creation of a thrilling historical event. The screenplay is taken from a book by C. S. Forester. It concentrates almost entirely on three playing areas. These are the subterranean London headquarters of the British admiralty, where the battle is plotted and directed; aboard the Germans' 'unsinkable' battleship, the Bismarck; and on board the various British vessels called into pursuit of the Nazi raider.

Sink The Bismarck! is a first-rate film re-creation of a thrilling historical event. The screenplay is taken from a book by C. S. Forester. It concentrates almost entirely on three playing areas. These are the subterranean London headquarters of the British admiralty, where the battle is plotted and directed; aboard the Germans’ ‘unsinkable’ battleship, the Bismarck; and on board the various British vessels called into pursuit of the Nazi raider.

The film opens with the chilling news that the Bismarck has escaped the British naval blockade and is loose in the North Atlantic. After it sinks the Hood, considered the greatest battleship in the world, it appears nothing can stop it from rendezvousing with its sister ships holed up at Brest.

Some of the dialog is a little high-flown, with the British at times too aware of the historical importance of the event. The Germans, on the other hand, tend to be Nazi caricatures.

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Kenneth More plays the British captain who directs the battle to catch the Bismarck with his customary and effective taciturnity. Dana Wynter is a helpful note as the WREN officer who is his aide. Carl Mohner manages some character as the German officer commanding the Bismarck.

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