Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Leofwine_draca Another fine British war movie of the 1950s. This one tackles the subject of the war in the Atlantic and features the crew of a British warship as they tackle the U-Boat menace. The film is based on a non-fiction novel by Monsarrat and thus has a ring of authenticity to it. There's certainly no jingoism or flag-waving here, just a sweaty and suspenseful account of what it's like to fight submarines in a theatre where the sea itself is an enemy.The cinematography is fine and the story gives a fair balance to both characters and plot. As is usual for this era, the cast is very fine, ranging from Jack Hawkins as the rugged sea commander to Denholm Elliott and Donald Sinden as his fresh-faced recruits. Stanley Baker has another stand-out turn as the sausage-loving first officer. Even Virginia McKenna is here, years before she became known for her work on BORN FREE. I wouldn't call THE CRUEL SEA quite top-tier material but it's certainly an enthralling and moving film nonetheless and above average for its genre.

robertguttman It's no easy task to translate a 400-page novel into a two-hour movie. It is inevitable that there are going to be things glossed over or left out. That being said, however, "The Cruel Sea" is probably one of the greatest movies about WW-II ever produced, as well as possibly the finest best movie ever made about ships and seamen. Essentially the film follows the events surrounding two naval officers through the course of the Battle of the Atlantic. One is an experienced Merchant Marine officer (Jack Hawkins) who has been called up for Navy duty when his reserve commission is activated at the beginning of World War II. The other is a young "90-Day-Wonder" reserve officer (Donald Sinden), who finds himself forced to mature as he copes with sea- duty and combat. Neither is quite the same man at the end of the film that he started out as at the beginning. Although this film made Jack Hawkins a major star, Sinden gives a particularly good performance as we see him subtly growing up over the course of the film. The story itself is one of day-to-day toil, interspersed with episodes of sudden terror, which is probably pretty much how it really was. Above all it is the realism that comes through in this film. Nothing is glamorized and nothing is over-dramatized. In fact, the film makers did such an effective job that it is almost as though one were watching a documentary, rather than a movie based upon a novel. "The heroines are the ships", says Lt. Cmdr. Ericson at the beginning of the film, and that is certainly true here. No CGI special effects were employed, nor was this movie filmed on a back-lot set. The viewers are seeing the real thing. HMS Coreopsis (Compass Rose) was commissioned in 1940 and, while she never did sink a U-boat, she really did escort convoys and rescue large numbers of shipwrecked seamen, exactly as depicted in film. In 1943 she was transferred to the Greek Navy. One of the last original Flower-class Corvettes still in existence at that time, Coreopsis was made available to the filmmakers only because the Greeks returned her to Britain in 1952 for scrapping. Filming "The Cruel Sea" was literally the last thing she ever did before going to the ship-breakers. HMS Portchester Castle (Saltash Castle) was commissioned in 1943, and she really did sink two U- boats. Perusing the reviews written about this film on this site, it is interesting to note that, among those who have actually served in the Navy, or worked at sea as seamen, this film rates at the very top. Under the circumstances, one can't get a higher recommendation that than.

tieman64 A classic of British cinema, director Charles Frend's "The Cruel Sea" documents five years in the lives of a motley group of British sailors. They're tasked with escorting Allied convoys during World War 2, but it's a seemingly impossible task; Germany's U-boat fleets prowl the seas and feast incessantly on British ships.Unlike most naval films of the era, "The Cruel Sea" is grim, depressing, gritty, pessimistic, suffused with futility and captures well the nuts and bolts banality of wartime. Occasionally the film's ship-board action gives way to several land-based, melodramatic subplots, which borrow heavily from the then burgeoning "kitchen sink" movement. Ealing Studio legend Jack Hawkins stars as the world-weary captain of a torpedo corvette.8/10 – Frend directed a number of British war films, but "The Cruel Sea" was his best. See too "Das Boot", "The Sand Pebbles", "The Last Detail", "Damn the Defiant", "Run Silent Run Deep" and "Sink the Bismarck!".

writers_reign Whenever I come to review a film I read first any other reviews unless, as in this case, there are several pages and then I read only the first page. Having just done that very thing it seems that all the reviews were written by people who had an extra knowledge of the subject, i.e. ex-naval personnel and/or those with relatives - fathers, brothers, cousins, possibly even husbands - who had served or are still serving in either the Royal navy or the Mercantile Marine. In other words people who were closer to the subject than someone like me, an impartial and dispassionate observer. I remember seeing this film on television years ago but retaining little memory of it. Seeing it again I found it competently made, well photographed, acted and directed, but was unable to detect any quality that would eclipse Noel Coward's definitive In Which We Serve. With that in mind it was perhaps unfortunate that someone involved - maybe the original novelist, Nicholas Monsarrat, maybe the scriptwriter, Eric Ambler - had seen fit to steal from Coward the situation of two shipmates connected to someone on shore who subsequently dies in an air raid. Coward wrote two chums whose wives shared the same house; here the only difference is that one of the shipmates is about to marry the sister of the other. It's watchable but, I feel, overpraised.