PT Raiders

Trailer—PT Raiders

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source: PT Raiders

The mood at Ealing had evidently changed in the six years since filling your boots from a shipwreck was treated as a bit of a lark in 'Whisky Galore!' Smuggling was for many years viewed benignly in postwar Britain as a romantic game which provided a bit of an adventure for ex-servicemen disoriented by the peace. But the increasingly sordid reality that has recently embraced people smuggling is here shown in all its bleak reality. Richard Attenborough plays the biggest skunk he'd played since 'Brighton Rock' and the general lack of glamour is underlined by Roland Culver making a very rare appearance without his toupee.

Spoilers. The title pretty much says it all. Ship 1087 is the British equivalent of an American MTB, operating in the English channel as a patrol boat, rescue vessel, escort, and what have you. While similar craft occasionally break down or are hard on the wheel, old 1087 is fast and reliable and gets its crew out of bad scrapes, as if it were a sentient and benificent force. The end of the war sees its crew dispersed and a bit disgruntled, and the boat itself winds up in a graveyard. One of the hands, Attenborough, runs into two of the former crew in a pub and persuades them to buy the old 1087, spruce her up, and use her to engage in a bit of minor smuggling, a few crates of choice wine now and then, just to keep the old boat going and its peacetime crew in cash. No harm to anybody, don't you know. But Sir Dickie, now more or less skipper of the boat, is sucked into running stuff rather murkier than Chateau neuf du Pape. He begins working in cahoots with a more dangerous ex-army man, and finds himself now transporting guns and then fugitive child murderers. Challenged by the two other hands, he replies, "I'll take care of business. You take care of the boat." Well, things just go rotten after that. Hunted down by the authorities, the Major plugs the coastguard officer. When the third hand, Raines, who maintains the engines, tries to leave, the Major plugs him as well. The protagonist, Randall, a basically good guy, plugs the Major. Sir Dickie and Randall have it out on the deck of old 1087, now heaving up and down in a heavy sea. Dickie tumbles overboard but manages to catch hold of a stanchion. Randall reaches down to pull him back aboard but old 1087 gives a sudden lurch and yanks Dickie into the sea before apparently dropping its still spinning screws on him. The boat then dies of shame. The boat of course is a symbol of the moral status of its crew. During the war it looks spiffy and performs superbly. Engaged in smuggling, its engines begin to fail more and more often, and it developes other quirks. It's all a bit on the heavy handed side, but it's not an uninteresting movie. Some nice shots of the boat, long and sleek, at sea, and some engaging scenes of combat near the beginning. Overall, this sort of story isn't surprising coming from Nicholas Monseratt, but it isn't the kind of movie we usually associate with Ealing Studios. It's worth catching if it's on, and it's not on TV very often.

THE SHIP THAT DIED OF SHAME is something a little different from Ealing Studios: it's a gritty crime drama about a trio of British sailors who find themselves at a loose end after the war and who decide to go into the smuggling business to make ends meet. What follows is low key and grittily realistic, based on a story by CRUEL SEA author Nicholas Monsarrat. The film has a much higher threshold of realism than most from this era and is thus less gung-ho than some, a character study more than an action thriller. George Baker is the reliable lead, suffering from tragedy and with a mix of drives and emotions to propel him onwards into a life of crime. Richard Attenborough does well in a very oily performance while Bill Owen brings up the rear in an understated turn. Other familiar faces like Virginia McKenna, Bernard Lee, and Roland Culver also appear from time to time. The first half of the film has a light, almost jovial atmosphere at times, but it all gets very dark and very serious for the climax.

I never miss this film whenever it is shown. This mainly down to the fact that my father Haydn Bartlett made the model used in the film. Unfortunately model makers were hardly ever given screen credits (he never got a credit for his model work on "Those magnificent men in their flying machines" either). I have photos of the model at various stages of construction including one it undergoing river tests and also a photo of the real boat. I remember dad saying that Richard Attenborough kept calling him 'darling' when he was on set (much to dads consternation). I always get a lump in my throat when I watch dads model sink under the waves...

What's noteworthy about this one for me is that similar vintage Hollywood films often spoil their stories by making their villains remorseful or in other ways kow-towing to the official morality of their times. These characters, by contrast, the bad ones and good ones alike, never hesitate for a moment to do the nasty things we know they will do. What's better, they are pictured as intelligent, for the most part, and able to give the authorities a run for their money. It's not that I think criminality is in any way praiseworthy, but rather that the writer gives us real people, making real decisions, and doesn't throw away the credibility of the characters merely to bow down to the official morality of his times. Particularly good is the character played by Attenborough, who isn't a bad man, but who, through not thinking enough about the choices he's making -- which he rationalizes very cleverly and realistically, so that it takes us a while to even see that that is what he's doing -- gets in far too deep, and then can't get himself out. A marvellous job of acting, and an intelligent and tightly woven script. Not a great movie, but a pretty good one, especially since the "actions" of the boat can just as easily be attributed to the hesitations of the characters, that is, there's no real supernatural force necessarily implied by the script.

The other commentator 'ianlouisiana' has summed this movie up pretty well. It is a morality play with the little ship representing a metaphor of moral's decline. A little heavy-handed at times, but it's engaging for all of that. There's a surprisingly good cast list for a story with such potentially limited appeal. Richard Attenborough, George Baker, Bill Owen, Vrginia McKenna and Bernard Lee could make even a turkey presentable. An interesting cat-and-mouse scenario develops between the three smugglers - Attenborough, Baker & Owen - and the customs officer, played by excellent Bernard Lee. He has a confrontation with them in harbour during which he is arrogantly brushed-off by Attenborough, whom he describes as being 'Lah-de-da'. Later, in a near-catch out in the English channel at night and in fog, he hears their boat hurtling away, and immediately recognises the sound of its powerful engines. From that moment on they are marked men. Things descend from high spirits to sordid crime and ultimately murder. And their spiral of disgrace is reflected in the declining reliability of their vessel and its final loss. There's plenty of open-air photography with some excellent shots at sea. White-capped waves and bright sunlight contrast with the darkening human motives and claustrophobic interior. Available on DVD, and well worth a whizz for all the right reasons. Though it's not a happy ending, even so.

This film addresses the hard lot that ex-servicemen had to face in nigh-on bankrupt post-war Britain; many of them felt of as little use as their now redundant equipment, and some sought excitement and ill-gotten gains by whatever means available. The Ship in question is a Royal Navy Motor Gun Boat and appears to be (I think) a Fairmile type C. These boats were fast, heavily armed and themselves somewhat vulnerable to attack having little or no armour and containing hundreds of gallons of fuel. They were powered by three large engines and sported between ~2000 and 4000hp depending on the specification. The idea of using a craft of this sort for smuggling is a bit of a stretch; they use several gallons of fuel per mile and are ruinously expensive to operate, so much so that few of this type survive today. Any smuggling operation using one would have to pay out handsomely just to meet the fuel bills. Anyway the film is a little darker and has less overt sympathies than many of this period. The cinematography and model work is pretty good and the cast is excellent. This film is well worth watching, almost a forgotten classic.