The Sea Shall Not Have Them (1954)

The Sea Shall Not Have Them: Directed by Lewis Gilbert. With Michael Redgrave, Dirk Bogarde, Anthony Steel, Nigel Patrick. In the North Sea in 1944, passengers of a downed Royal Air Force transport aircraft talk about their lives while awaiting rescue in their dinghy.

“Despite the fact that much of this film appears to have been filmed in a London lido, it still manages to engender quite a bit of peril. The passengers of a shot down plane are adrift in the Channel in a lifeboat with limited rations, cold and wet, praying for rescue before discovery by the Nazis or death by more long-drawn out means. Itu0026#39;s got many of the usual ingredients of a wartime adventure, but is told in quite an interesting manner – each of the passengers having their few minutes of fame to explain why they are in their current predicament. Their would be rescuers are having quite a few problems of their own, and the whole thing builds nicely to quite an exciting denouement. The cast – Dirk Bogarde, Michael Redgrave, Nigel Patrick and Anthony Steele work efficiently, if not sparklingly, together within the confines of their dinghy; their tolerances of their environment and of each other – regardless of rank – stretches patience and tests tempers in a plausible fashion. At times I felt I was on the boat with them – a testament to the intense direction from Lewis Gilbert who manages to compensate for the limited resources available to the film, and create quite a compelling, realistic looking story.”