Wednesday, June 15, 2005
WET
Today's movie has many things to recommend it.
It is a film adaptation of the first grown up paper back book that I ever bought for myself; I was 14. It turns out that it was a highly praised book by Nicholas Monsarrat. I lucked out.
This added to the punch when I saw the movie 4 year later. It really got to me.
My Dad had been on a destroyer escort as was my husband John only I didn't know the second part then.
It has Jack Hawkins, an actor long gone, who I adored. Father image.
And, it passed the acid test of having a real navy destroyer man watching critically without any adverse comment from start to finish. Now that is something.
The Cruel Sea (1953) (scroll down for the second review) is a less a story than a set of vignettes that capture naval life for the five year span of the war.
It expertly links these situations together to make for a quite emotional story of two men who manage to spend the entire war in service together.
There is an extensive use of film clips from the real war and they somehow fit in seamlessly. It is quite uncanny how they are able to make this work.
It is a NYTimes Best 1176 Film and I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5.
