Sailor of the King
| Single-Handed | |
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US release poster with overseas market name, Sailor of the King.
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| Directed by | Roy Boulting |
| Produced by | Frank McCarthy |
| Written by |
C. S. Forester (novel) Valentine Davies |
| Starring |
Jeffrey Hunter Michael Rennie Peter van Eyck Wendy Hiller |
| Music by | Clifton Parker |
| Cinematography | Gilbert Taylor |
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Release date
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Running time
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83 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1,220,000 |
Single-Handed is a 1953 war film based on the novel Brown on Resolution by C. S. Forester and (despite being largely set in the Pacific) filmed in the Mediterranean Sea. Jeffrey Hunter stars as a Canadian sailor serving on a British warship who battles single-handedly to delay a German World War II warship long enough for the Royal Navy to bring it to battle. The film was released in the United States as Sailor of the King.
During the First World War, Lieutenant Richard Saville, a young British naval officer on five days leave, and Miss Lucinda Bentley, a merchant's daughter from Portsmouth, get talking on the train up to London. Halfway along their journey, they miss their rail connection and spend a romantic holiday in the countryside of southern England. When Saville proposes to her, she accepts, but on the day they are due to go back to Portsmouth, she changes her mind, asking Saville to realise that neither he nor she could bear being parted for the long periods he would be at sea. They part, seemingly forever.
Saville serves out the First World War and the inter-war years, and by the first years of the Second World War, he is in command of a squadron of three cruisers on convoy duty in the Pacific. He receives a message from a British merchantman just before it is sunk by the German raider Essen, but HMS Stratford, the flagship of Saville's squadron is too low on fuel for pursuit and the convoy cannot be left unguarded. Saville decides to remain with the convoy while his other two ships - HMS Amesbury and HMS Cambridge - chase after the raider. Cambridge then has to stop to pick up survivors from the merchantman, leaving the Amesbury on her own. Amesbury finds and attacks the Essen, scoring a major torpedo hit on the Essen’s bow, but is sunk with the loss of all but two hands, Petty Officer Wheatley and Signalman Andrew 'Canada' Brown. Brown is the son of a mother keen on the navy and thus knows more about naval tactics, strategy and gunnery than most of his rank.
The Essen picks up the two survivors. Meanwhile, news of the Amesbury’s fate reaches Saville in the Stratford. Saville decides to risk all and go after the Essen with Cambridge. While the Essen is anchored in a rocky lagoon for 36 hours to carry out repairs, Brown manages to escape to the heights around the lagoon with a rifle (back home, he had won marksmanship prizes). He then proceeds to pick off sailors working on the repairs, leading the Essen’s captain to use his ship's AA guns and then big guns in vain attempts to dislodge Brown. Finally he sends a party of marines out to hunt Brown down, but just as they are about to kill him, they are recalled and the Essen departs. Brown collapses, seriously wounded.
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Wikipedia