The Cockleshell Heroes (1955) - film review

During WWII, Major Stringer, an American officer recently assigned to the Royal Marines, devises a daring plan that will help to break Germany’s blockade of Britain’s sea lanes.  The plan involves a party of marines rowing up the Gironde estuary in collapsible submarines to enter the harbour at Bordeaux.  Here, under the cover of darkness, the marines will attach limpet bombs to the hulls of German battleships and escape into the surrounding countryside before the bombs explode.   Stringer runs into immediate conflict with his second-in-command, Captain Hugh Thompson, who believes Stringer’s plan is ill-conceived and disapproves of the major’s training methods, which fail to instil discipline into the men he has selected for the mission.  When a training exercise goes disastrously wrong, Stringer allows Thompson to take charge and put the marines through their paces.   After months of preparation, Operation Cockleshell is given the all-clear.  Only two of the ten marines who set out will return...

One of the more remarkable exploits of the Second World War is skilfully portrayed in this feel-good war film, the second directorial offering from actor José Ferrer, who also stars in the film.  The Cockleshell Heroes was one of the first British war films to be shot in CinemaScope and consequently has a much greater sense of realism than many previous British wartime dramas.  Ferrer, who had previously won acclaim for his stage and screen portrayal of Cyrano de Bergerac, makes a decent fist of directing the film, in spite of clashing with producer Irving Allen, who insisted on injecting more humour into the film than Ferrer wanted.  Allen’s co-producer on the film was Albert R. Broccoli, who would go on to produce the James Bond films.  As two officers with wildly differing views on how to make a good soldier, José Ferrer and Trevor Howard complement one another perfectly, although Howard’s character, a man desperate to prove himself after years of desk-bound inaction, is the more interesting of the two.  

The film is typical of its era, glossing over the unpleasant realties of war and resorting to the familiar tried and trusted stereotypes.  However, it is interesting for two reasons.  Firstly, it offers an accurate and fascinating portrayal of a real-life military operation, the success of which did have a significant impact on the British war effort.  Secondly, it uses comedy to a much greater extent than many war films, and does so without detracting from the seriousness of the subject or the heroic contribution of the protagonists.  The first half of the film, which depicts the training and preparation for the mission, can almost be mistaken for an early Carry On film, an impression that is reinforced by the presence of such stalwarts of British film comedy as Dora Bryan, Victor Maddern and David Lodge.  The mood changes dramatically when the film moves on to recount the mission itself.  At this point, The Cockleshell Heroes resembles a far more conventional war film, dispensing with the light-hearted whimsy and embracing a more realistic narrative style which manages to evoke the danger and tragic reality of warfare.  With its stiff upper lip mentality and wry humour, this is a quintessentially British take on war and a worthy tribute to the real Cockleshell heroes.

© Derek Adamson 2010

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