Sink the Bismarck! is a 1960 black-and-white CinemaScope British war film based on the 1958 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. It is the only film made that deals directly with the operations, chase and sinking of the battleship 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 highly popular 1960 song, "Sink the Bismarck",Polmar and Cavas 2009, p. 251. credited by Variety with boosting the film's American gross alone by an estimated half a million dollars.
The film had its Royal World Premiere in the presence of the Duke of Edinburgh at the Odeon Leicester Square on 11 February 1960.
Plot
In February 1939, Nazi Germany's most powerful battleship, , is launched, beginning a new era of German sea power. In May 1941, British naval intelligence discovers Bismarck and the heavy cruiser are sailing into the North Atlantic to attack Allied convoys. From an underground war room in London, Captain Jonathan Shepard, a widower with a son in the Navy, coordinates the hunt for Bismarck with the help of Women's Royal Naval Service Second Officer (WRNS) Anne Davis, who is concerned by Shepard's icy demeanor.
The German warships engage and in the Denmark Strait. Hood is annihilated in an instant, shocking combatants on both sides. Prince of Wales fights on and damages Bismarck's bow, before return fire damages her bridge, forcing retreat behind a smoke screen. Bismarck and Prinz Eugen withdraw, shadowed by the cruisers HMS Suffolk and HMS Norfolk using radar. On hearing of the loss of Hood, Prime Minister Winston Churchill issues the order to "sink the Bismarck". Prinz Eugen breaks off for the port of Brest, in occupied France, with Bismarck driving off the British cruisers with broadsides as Prinz Eugen escapes. An air attack launched from the carrier damages Bismarck's fuel tanks.
At operations headquarters in London, Captain Shepard is informed his son's plane is missing. Gambling that Admiral Günther Lütjens, the Fleet Commander aboard Bismarck, has ordered a return to friendly waters where U-boats and air cover will make it impossible to attack, he plans to intercept Bismarck before she reaches safety with a disproportionately large force. His wager pays off when Bismarck is located steaming toward the French coast. British forces have a narrow time window in which to destroy or slow their prey before German support and their own diminishing fuel supplies will preclude further attacks. Swordfish torpedo planes from HMS Ark Royal misidentify as Bismarck, but their new magnetic torpedo detonators are faulty, and most of them explode as soon as they are launched. Their second attack, after rearming with conventional contact torpedoes, is successful and a torpedo jams the German battleship's rudder. Captain Shepard is told his son has been rescued, and weeps in his office.
Unable to repair her rudder, Bismarck steams in circles and British destroyers launch a night torpedo attack on the crippled battleship. Bismarck returns fire, sinking the destroyer HMS Solent. After sunrise the main British force, including battleships and , engage Bismarck. Lütjens insists that German forces will arrive to save them, but is killed with other senior officers when a shell strikes Bismarcks bridge. The crew abandon ship. On board King George V, Admiral John Tovey orders the newly joined cruiser to torpedo her, causing her to capsize and sink faster than her crew can escape. The captain of King George V, Wilfrid Patterson, lowers his head as Bismarck disappears beneath the waves, completing the Royal Navy's response to Churchill's directive. Admiral Tovey orders Dorsetshire to pick up survivors, finally saying, "Well, gentlemen, let's go home." Back in London, Captain Shepherd asks Second Officer Davis out to dinner when she says it is nine o'clock, believing it to be nighttime, only to find it is nine in the morning. The two go out to breakfast instead.
Cast Ashore
Kenneth More as Captain Jonathan Shepard (inspired by Captain Ralph Edwards) (More had served as a Royal Navy lieutenant on HMS Victorious during the war.) Dana Wynter as Women's Royal Naval Service Second Officer (WRNS) Anne Davis Laurence Naismith as First Sea Lord Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound (Naismith served in the Royal Artillery in the war.) Geoffrey Keen as Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff (A.C.N.S.) (inspired by Rear Admiral Arthur Power) Michael Goodliffe as Captain Banister (inspired by Captain Cecil H. J. Harcourt) (Captured at Dunkirk after being shot in the leg.) Maurice Denham as Commander Richards (Served in the Medical Corps in the war.) Norman Shelley as voice of Prime Minister Winston Churchill (uncredited) Jack Watling as RNVR Signals Officer Thomas Waldron Price as Flag Lieutenant to First Sea Lord Seán Barrett as Able Seaman Brown Victor Maddern as Leading seaman, in closing scene outside Admiralty (uncredited) Graham Stark as Petty Officer Williams Russell Napier as Air Vice-Marshal (uncredited) John Barron as photographic intelligence officer (uncredited)
and Edward R. Murrow as himself: Edward R. Murrow, CBS London radio correspondent in 1941
At sea
Karel Štěpánek as Admiral Günther Lütjens in Bismarck Carl Möhner as Captain Ernst Lindemann of Bismarck (voice: Robert Rietti) Walter Hudd as Vice-Admiral Lancelot Holland, in HMS Hood John Stuart as Captain Ralph Kerr of HMS Hood Esmond Knight as Captain John Leach of HMS Prince of Wales (Knight served as a gunnery officer on board Prince of Wales, and was seriously injured and blinded during the battle with Bismarck.) Johnny Briggs as Young Seaman in Prince of Wales (uncredited) Sydney Tafler as Henry, civilian workman aboard Prince of Wales Sam Kydd as civilian workman aboard Prince of Wales Julian Somers as civilian workman aboard HMS Prince of Wales Ernest Clark as Captain Robert Ellis, HMS Suffolk (Clark served in the army during the war receiving the Military Cross) Mark Dignam as Captain Loben Maund, HMS Ark Royal John Stride as Tom Shepard, Captain Shepard's son, TAG (Telegraphist/Air Gunner) in Ark Royal'''s Swordfish squadron (uncredited) Donald Churchill as Seaman on Ark Royal (uncredited) Glyn Houston as Seaman on Prince of Wales (uncredited) David Hemmings as seaman in Ark Royal (uncredited) John Horsley as Captain Charles Larcom, HMS Sheffield Peter Burton as Captain Philip Vian, 4th Destroyer Flotilla (First Destroyer) Jack Gwillim as Captain Wilfrid Patterson, HMS King George V (Gwillim served 20 years in the Royal Navy, rising to the rank of commander.) Michael Hordern as Admiral Sir John Tovey, C-in-C Home Fleet, in HMS King George V (Hordern served as a lieutenant commander on HMS Illustrious during the war.) Peter Dyneley as Commander Jenkins (uncredited) Michael Balfour as Able Seaman – Lookout on Suffolk (uncredited) Michael Ripper as Able Seaman – Lookout on Suffolk (uncredited) Walter Gotell as Signals Officer Mueller on the Bismarck (uncredited) George Pravda as Damage Control Officer on the Bismarck (uncredited) Anthony Oliver as Operations Officer on Ark Royal (uncredited) Ian Hendry as Meteorological Officer on King George V (uncredited) Brian Worth as Torpedo Control Officer on First Destroyer (uncredited) Edward Judd as Navigating Officer on board Prince of Wales (uncredited) Hugh Moxey as Captain – HMS Solent (Second Destroyer) (uncredited)
Production Scripting C. S. Forester reportedly wrote the story as a screen treatment for 20th Century-Fox before even writing the book.
Writer Edmund H. North worked closely with Forester's story, compressing events and time lines to make the plot taut. Along with the director, he decided to use a documentary-style technique, switching back-and-forth from a fairly insular war room to action taking place on remote battleships.Frietas 2011, p. 79. The action is made more realistic when the human element of men in a game of wits and nerves is involved. The use of Edward R. Murrow reprising his wartime broadcasts from London also lends an air of authenticity and near-documentary feel.Mayo 1999, p. 264. Lewis Gilbert said it was a "very well written script" one of the few in his career that he barely altered. "It was more like a detective story," said Gilbert.
Gilbert was offered the film by John Brabourne. They decided to shoot the film in black and white in order to intercut it with newsreel footage and to make it seem more authentic.
The film end-credits identify the actual Director of Operations as Capt. R. A. B. Edwards and "Capt. Shepard" as fictional. Added human interest is given to Shephard with his son's possible loss of life in battle affecting Shephard's emotions. There is an absence of a Shepard-Davis interplay to add gender interrelationships in wartime to the narrative. It is found but only at the very end and when, with the Bismarck dispatched to the seafloor, Shepard asks the young Wren officer for a dinner date and they walk out into London's sunny morning air. In a similar manner, the battle between British and German forces is also recreated as a human drama, with Admiral Lütjens pitted against Captain Shepard in a "psychological chess match".Hyams 1984, p. 135.
Casting Lewis Gilbert suggested Kenneth More for the lead, with whom he had worked several times before. Dana Wynter was under contract to 20th Century-Fox.
Reception Critical For the most part, the historical accuracy in Sink the Bismarck! was praised by critics, with Variety calling it a "first-rate film re-creation of a thrilling historical event". A contemporary The New York Times review by A. H. Weiler, likewise championed its realism in saying "a viewer could not ask for greater authenticity". However, it went on to criticise both the acting and the constant scene changes "from Admiralty plotting rooms to the bridges of the ships at sea", claiming that this lessened the "over-all effectiveness" of both scenes. Film4 praised its cinematography, noting that it "very realistically re-enacted scenes in the War Room of the Admiralty" as well as "excellently filmed episodes using miniature models"."Sink the Bismarck! Film4, 2013. Retrieved: 1 December 2013.
During the postwar period, war films were one staple of the British film industry, with Sink the Bismarck! an exemplar, sharing the "common themes, actors ... visual style and ideological messages" of the genre.Lovell 2000, p. 205. British magazine Radio Times viewed Sink the Bismarck! positively, stating that "this fine film fully captures the tensions, dangers and complexities of battle by concentrating on the unsung back-room planners as much as on the combatants themselves" while also praising More's performance. Attention was drawn to the ways in which it deviated from other war films of the period, specifically commenting on how "there is a respect for the enemy that is missing in many previous flag-wavers". The film was given a four-star rating.
Gilbert's continual forays into events that shaped the British war experience mirrored his own background as a wartime filmmaker. His films merged historical episodes and the role of the individual, with Sink the Bismarck! characterised as having an "emotional punch, not least because Gilbert's direction relentlessly focuses on the human dimension amidst the history".Allon et al. 2002, p. 115.