Sink the Bismarck!

Sink the Bismarck!
Original film poster by Tom Chantrell, showing Kenneth More and Dana Wynter. Tagline: "The Greatest Naval Epic of Them All."
Directed by	Lewis Gilbert
Produced by	John Brabourne
Screenplay by	Edmund H. North
Based on	The Last Nine Days of the Bismarck 1958 novel by C. S. Forester
Starring	Kenneth More Carl Möhner Dana Wynter
Music by	Clifton Parker
Cinematography	Christopher Challis
Edited by	Peter R. Hunt
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	11 February 1960
Running time	97 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$1,330,000
Box office	$3,000,000 (US/ Canada)

Sink the Bismarck! is a 1960 black-and-white CinemaScope British war film based on the book The Last Nine Days of the Bismarck by C. S. Forester. It stars Kenneth More and Dana Wynter and was directed by Lewis Gilbert. To date, it is the only film made that deals directly with the operations, chase and sinking of the battleship Bismarck by the Royal Navy during the Second World War. Although war films were common in the 1960s, Sink the Bismarck! was seen as something of an anomaly, with much of its time devoted to the "unsung back-room planners as much as on the combatants themselves." Its historical accuracy, in particular, met with much praise despite a number of inconsistencies.

Sink the Bismarck! was the inspiration for Johnny Horton's popular 1960 song, "Sink the Bismarck." The film had its Royal World Premiere in the presence of the Duke of Edinburgh at the Odeon Leicester Square on 11 February 1960.

In 1939, Nazi Germany's largest and most powerful battleship, Bismarck, is launched in a ceremony at Hamburg with Adolf Hitler attending. The launching of the hull is seen as the beginning of a new era of German sea power.

Two years later, in 1941, British convoys are being ravaged by U-boats and surface raider attacks that cut off supplies essential for Britain's abilities to continue the war. In May, British intelligence discovers the Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen are about to break out of the Baltic and into the North Atlantic to attack convoys.