H.M.S. Defiant (1962)

It's 1797 during the French Revolutionary Wars. Captain Crawford (Alec Guinness) is setting off on his ship, the H.M.S. Defiant, with his eager young boy. He's a veteran with a gentle touch considering the era. Lieut. Scott-Padget (Dirk Bogarde) is his new well-connected, ruthless, hardnosed first mate. There is a building conflict between the two. Much of the crew have been pressed into service by force and some are plotting a fleet wide mutiny.This is a well made thrilling sailing navy flick. The acting is first rate led by the great Guinness. The back and forth between Crawford and Scott-Padget is intriguing although more background for Scott-Padget would help. It's not quite at the level of the best of the genre but it's plenty good enough. The miniature action is quite nice. The hand to hand combat is thrilling. It's solid swashbuckling with a compelling clash of personalities.

I don't know how and why people looked at the "Mutiny on The Bounty (1962)" & "The Bounty (1984)" and considered they were better than this film. To me, this film is a much better film about the seamanship and how the crew of a ship turned to mutiny as the only way to solve the inhuman treatment by an cruel captain or the first officer of the ship. This film was actually with better screenplay, better directing, and best of all, the great acting by almost everyone on that battleship. And the beautiful thing of this film was when patriotism surpassed the mutinous private and personal goal, the crew had decided to put their hatred toward their officers behind and did the right thing for their country. This is one of the best films about the regular people on the sea and how they made a right decision at the critical moment. Love it, just love it.

Enjoyed the great acting by Alex Guiness, (Captain Crawford) and Dick Bogarde, (Lt. Scott Padget) who both sailed together on a ship where they practiced shanghiling when they were in port and just plain grabbed all civilian men and brought them aboard their ship and made sailors of them. All these men had to do very undesirable jobs on the ships and many of them rebelled against the military officers in charge of the ship. Captain Crawford just so happened to have his son aboard the ship who was being mistreated by his officers and other men who were forced to serve aboard the ship were whipped and beaten regularly for rebelling and refusing to take orders Captain Crawford was not aware of the cruelty that was inflicted on his men and then there started to become rumors about a mutiny aboard the ship. Great story about the old Navy days on British ships that sailed the ocean.

I remember seeing H.M.S. Defiant in the theater when it came out back in 1962. It's too bad my VHS copy is formatted. One really needs the wide screen to appreciate the vast sweep of this wonderful sea adventure.The Defiant sets sail from the naval harbor at Spithead just before the ships of the Channel Fleet are ready to start an organized mutiny. So with no contact between them and the ships at Spithead or in the Mediterranean, the men of the Defiant have to work out their own course of action. That action is the basis for what happens.They've got an unwitting ally in the ship's executive officer, Scott- Padget played by Dirk Bogarde. A future Drake or Hawkins with influence and a taste for sadism. He looks to usurp the authority of Captain Crawford who is played by Alec Guinness. The conflict between them plays into the hands of the mutineers.In that other famous story of the sea, Mutiny on the Bounty, Fletcher Christian points out to Captain Bligh that the men drafted into the Royal Navy from the press gangs aren't king and country volunteers. Neither are these people in the foc'sle of the Defiant.Bogarde plays against type and does it well. He's usually not a villain in film although he had essayed villainous roles before in his career. But Guinness is a wonder. His Captain Crawford, calm, detached, and inspiring in his own way in his patriotism was a role Alec Guinness could be proud of. Totally different than the characters he played in those Ealing studio comedies. This falls more in line with Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai or Colonel Sinclair in Tunes of Glory without the bad character features the other two had. Great Britain eventually stopped using press gangs, but at the time it was the way the Royal Navy got a crew together. In fact later on during the Napoleonic Wars, the British took to stopping American ships and impressing members of those crews in the Royal Navy. It was one of the causes of the War of 1812.Two other performances in H.M.S. Defiant are worthy of note. Anthony Quayle as the mutiny leader on the Defiant and Tom Bell one of the mutineers whose rashness nearly blows it all for the seamen and their cause.Hovering over all of this is the French and to me the highlight of the film is Alec Guinness reminding the men of their duty to prevent a French invasion of their island home. It's a superb piece of drama.A little Mutiny on the Bounty, a little Horatio Hornblower go into the plot of H.M.S. Defiant. It's a good mix with a superb group of players serving it up for the audience.