The Silver Fleet (1943)

The Silver Fleet is a British war film first released in 1943, directed by Vernon Sewell and Gordon Wellesley.  The film stars Ralph Richardson, Googie Withers, Esmond Knight, Beresford Egan and Frederick Burtwell.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


During WWII, with Holland under German occupation, naval engineer Jaap van Leyden cooperates with the Nazis by helping to build U-boats in his shipyard.  Van Leydan appears to be undaunted when the townspeople turn against him and label him and his family quislings.  Meanwhile, someone using the soubriquet Piet Hein is organising a resistance group among the boatyard workers.  The group succeeds in capturing the first U-boat on its maiden voyage and pilots it to England.  No one is more pleased with this outcome than van Leyden.  The Nazis have another surprise coming...

The Silver Fleet is one of a series of highly effective wartime propaganda films to be produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, known as The Archers, during the Second World War.  This one was directed by Vernon Sewell and Gordon Wellesley, and scripted by Pressburger.  Through a gripping story, which has a few suspenseful Hitchcockian moments, the film makes a fervent appeal to the British people to support the war effort.  Although it is hard for someone watching the film today to have any sense of the mindset of the film’s original intended audience, its earnest messages about self-sacrifice and patriotism still strike a chord.  

As in most of the Powell-Pressburger wartime productions, the film uses real locations to add a striking sense of realism, and stark black and white photography that suits the bleakness of the subject.  The film has some lighter moments and the Nazis are treated far more sympathetically than in many films of this period.  One of the main reasons why the film has such an impact is because Ralph Richardson succeeds, through his understated portrayal of a resistance leader and family man, in showing that in every ordinary man there lies a spirit of heroism.

© James Travers 2008

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