Damn the Defiant!
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Movie Reviews of Damn the Defiant!
Movie Review: Great actors, great movie
Summary: 5 Stars
Alec Guinness gives a great performance as an humanitarian captain during a very interesting period of history. This 1962 movie shows undoubtedly a good achievement in visuals, even according to present standards, despite the deficiency (or absence) of FX.Movie Review: history comes to life
Summary: 5 Stars
Sir Alec Guiness is totally convincing. Anthony Quayle's character is so believable. What a great way to learn about why the English navy ruled the oceans. Awesome photography! This movie is the type that withstands the test of time. It lives!Movie Review: Great Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
Who doesn't like a good naval battle?
Good story
I liked it alot
Forrest Gump
Movie Review: Well done Napoleonic Naval Film
Summary: 4 Stars
Damn the Defiant! isn't the best naval action film out there however it's definitely an under appreciated good film. That said, I have a weakness for the subject matter since I grew up on C. S. Forester's Hornblower and Alexander Kent's Captain Bolitho books (i.e Napoleonic era valiant British officers fighting the evil Frenchies!). Thus, Damn the Defiant! immediately strikes an intensely nostalgic nerve.
Dirk Bogarde (Mr. Scott-Padget) is as good as ever (still has a few years until his great film roles, The Servant, Accident, The Damned, and Death in Venice) and Alec Guinness (Captain Crawford) is unspectacular yet perfectly underplayed for the role. This is a very competent 1960s Napoleonic war movie. Recommended for those who enjoy naval battles! The high seas! Mutinies! But if you don't, well, stay away!
Plot (limited spoilers)
Damn the Defiant! takes place in the early years of the Napoleonic Wars (by reference to the Spithead Mutinies the year 1797). Captain Crawford (a humane character) engages in a power struggle with his rebellious, sadistic, and well-connected second in command, Mr. Scott-Padget. Mr. Scott-Padget constantly questions Captain Crawford's orders and eventually subjects Crawford's son Harvey, a midshipman, to unnecessary in order to gain control over the Crawford.
Mr. Scott-Padget's harsh treatment of the crew and general rumblings in the British fleet (that would culminate in the Spithead Mutinies) cause the crew to plan for a mutiny. However, in the Mediterranean, after the H. M. S Defiant captures a French vessel, the captain sends his son and another officer back on the prize ship removing Mr. Scott-Padgett's means of leverage. In another battle with a Venetian vessel vital information about a potential French invasion of England, however, the Captain is injured and Mr. Scott Padget takes command. The crew is goaded into mutiny!! Here my summary shall stop.
Final Thoughts
Damn the Defiant! is part action movie and part character study. Our hero is not a dashing young man -- the dashing young man is actually the villain (Mr. Scott-Padget). The melding of the two genres works for the majority of the film. However, the final battle sequence is just too artificial and relies entirely on the action component of the film abandoning the interesting psychological aspects of the rest. In short, 90% of the film is very well-done while the final 10% is rather run of the mill.
My main problem with the film concerns the villainous Mr. Scott-Padget character. Although he has a sadistic streak, I've read enough about the navy at the time to say that the punishments he gives (and wants to give) aren't that uncommon or out of line. I guess the main problem lies in the fact that the truly atrocious conditions the British navy suffered at this time isn't understood by the audience and this the motives for the mutineers just don't ring true. Sailors were always punished for hitting officers, for talking back at them, loitering... The film lacks the necessary gritty and disturbing realism needed for the plot to be effective (but it is 60s cinema...).
Despite its flaws, the film has some more effective Napoleonic naval battle sequences of anything made before Peter Wer's recent film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. The sequences are even more realistic than some of the battle sequences of the Hornblower TV where the ships' sails are seldom filled with wind! Obviously the Hornblower TV movies have better plots and other merits lacking in this film. This is worth watching for the pure fact that Napoleonic War Naval movies are rare and hard to carry out. However, the film's core (characters, basic story line, etc) ultimately is rather hollow and run of the mill.
Movie Review: British Naval Warfare, With Cruelty, Mutiny And Patriotism In 1797
Summary: 4 Stars
Anyone who likes iron men fighting in wooden ships against the French, with the roar of cannon and splinters flying everywhere, will enjoy the last half of Damn the Defiant!. Whether you enjoy the first half depends on how well you appreciate the almost psychopathic cruelty and condescension of First Lieutenant Scott-Padget (Dirk Bogarde).
It's 1797, Napoleon threatens Britain, and only the Royal Navy ensures Britain's freedom. Captain Crawford (Alec Guinness) takes command of H.M.S. Defiant, a single-gun-deck frigate. Also joining the ship is Scott-Padget, an officer with friends in high places, a talent for seamanship, and a taste for flogging. While Crawford is determined to keep an open mind about his first lieutenant, it becomes quickly apparent that Scott-Padget is an arrogant sadist who is fully capable of undermining Crawford's authority if that's what it takes to get his way. He doesn't hesitate to brutalize the captain's 12-year-old son, brought on board as a midshipman, in subtle ways that keep Crawford from intervening. Added to this seething mix is the crew itself, brutalized not just by Scott-Padget but by the terrible living conditions sailors of the Royal Navy had to endure. One crewman, Vizard (Anthony Quayle), is the leader in putting together what he thinks will be a non-violent petition for redress. Every officer, however, will consider it a mutiny.
The first half of the movie is two stories. There is the struggle between Crawford and Scott-Padget, with Scott-Padget eventually getting the upper-hand. And there is the story of the men on a wooden ship of war and what their lives are like as they're beaten and trained to be seamen, subsist on a diet of rotten meat and weevily hardtack, and can receive 50 lashes at the whim of a first lieutenant.
The second half, however, is a rouser of the old school. A vital message must be delivered to the fleet, Captain Crawford finally is able to assert himself and the French break out of a blockade determined to attack an unaware British squadron in the fog. Ship-to-ship battles are fought where the victor will be determined by which ship can get alongside the other and throw iron faster at near point-blank range. And the seamen of Defiant must decide if their loyalty to Britain will override their knowledge that, if they are accused of being mutineers, each man will most likely be hanged.
The movie's strong points, for me, are the production values, the recreation of how brutal ship-to-ship fighting was, the look at the lives of men at sea in a fighting ship, and the appeal to patriotism over self interest, which was handled effectively because it was treated matter-of-factly. The weak points, for me, centered on the two leads. Guinness as Captain Crawford seemed too sluggish in coming to grips with his first lieutenant. He needed in my view more fire. Guinness was an actor who excelled in ambiguous and thoughtful roles, but he had it in him to play men with iron and passion; just look at him as Major Jock Sinclair in Tunes of Glory. Dirk Bogarde, however, plays Scott-Padget without an ounce of any quality than condescending sadism. Scott-Padget may be a talented sea officer and a brave man, but every time he's on screen you know exactly how he will behave. For those who like the smaller roles, keep an eye out for Tom Bell, who plays a resentful, violent seaman. Nearly thirty years later he was DS Bill Otley...a man Jane Tennison quickly learned not to trust in Prime Suspect 1 but who surprised her in Prime Suspect 3.
The DVD picture looks just fine, with anamorphic wide-screen on one side and full screen on the other. There are three or four extras which aren't significant.