Enjoyed the great acting by Gene Kelly playing the role as a Navy Lt."Brad" Bradwell who is a weapons expert in torpedo training and is enlisted by the British Navy to help with a secret mission of completing a powerful torpedo which is fired from a submarine. The British had failed their experiment and lost many men an a submarine, so they decided to work with the United States Navy in trying to complete their mission. The story takes place on a island with British personnel and there are plenty of problems that they all face in trying to get along with each other and the hope for a successful testing of their weapon. Great acting by Gene Kelly who took off his dancing shoes and played a great dramatic role.
9 Reviews
Dry
Bob-456 January 2001
Fine performances by Gene Kelly, David Orr and Bernard Lee (The original "M" from 007) cannot save this dull melodrama. Kelly plays an American Lt./Scientist, trying to determine why an experimental British torpedo carrying a new explosive warhead blew up four seconds after release, killing both the British scientist and torpedoman. It's pretty heavy stuff (no women, desolate island), unleavened by attempts at lame humour (Sidney James, doing his best with the material). The film fails at drama, because the subplots require too much coincidence. The film fails as mystery because the plotting require both Navy scientists to violate the most basic rule of fault isolation to forward the story. Once the solution is found, the film continues with some phony "derring do" which creates zero tension. Even the cinematography and score (by the usually reliable Miklos Rosza [BEN HUR, THE POWER]) are subpar. The score in particular is inappropriate and sounds like leftovers from better movies (BEN HUR, in particular).
For Gene Kelly fans looking for something different...
For Gene Kelly fans looking for something different...
I enjoyed this film despite the slowness
birode22 September 2001
TCM has shown this film twice in the last week, both times at 5 AM, for some unknown reason they bill it as a comedy, probably because it has Sid James as one of its stars, or possibly because it was directed by the Boulting Brothers, and though it did rely a lot on coincidence, and most of the time the music was fair, even top musicians have off days, the actors carried out their parts well. Even so, this is not one for DVD, unless you could add lots of out-takes from Sid and Gene, who knows??
Clunky, dull, pointless pulp
iain-21811 December 2012
I would love to have seen the looks on faces of cinema goers as they came out from watching this film back in 1954 - I suspect it would have been a mixture of wonderment at why the film was made, amazement that Gene Kelly couldn't act his way out of a paper bag, curiosity to know if a contract has been taken out on the script writer, and suicidal depression at having spent time and money going in the door in the first place. I have given this one point above the worst possible score as I am sure it had honorable aspirations i.e. to reflect the commitment of brave men during the war. But to be sure, this was no Dam Busters!!
Gene Kelly is all at sea with the British Navy
Scaramouche200418 May 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Not many people realise what a great dramatic actor Gene Kelly could be when he occasionally hung up his tap dancing shoes and accepted the occasional straight role or two.
Although his 1942 movie debut was in a musical, he none the less spent his first two or three years in Hollywood, alternating between dramatic and musical roles almost with every picture. Who can forget his incarcerated French patriot in The Cross of Lorraine, The murderous and sinister husband in Christmas Holiday, or the vengeful orphan determined to bring down a mafia kingpin in 1950's Black Hand?
Seagulls over Sorrento, a British made film, is yet another example of Kelly's dramatic talents as he plays an American Naval Scientist on loan to the Royal Navy to help perfect a new top secret torpedo weapon. With him on this trip are two American seamen who just happen to be expert torpedo engineers.
Despite the weapon being stripped, checked, reassembled and checked again at least a dozen times over, it has none the less exploded immediately after launch on all it's previous sea trials killing everyone involved on what has become to be regarded as a suicide mission.
John Justin plays Kelly's British counterpart, who disapproves of Kelly butting his Yankee nose in, as he believes national pride is at stake.
There is also trouble between the ratings too, as the brave British Matlows and their brash American cousins rub each other up the wrong way from the start, a major bone of contention being that the Americans are there purely on engineering duties, whereby the British sailors are there for blowing themselves to smithereens on command for Queen and country duties.
This is also not helped by the only weak plot twist in the entire picture. There are only two American sailors and five British ratings, and by pure coincidence one of the yanks seems to be responsible for stealing one of the limey's girlfriends during the war. What were the chances of that? It's a small world you bet ya!
But despite this one criticism, where we the audience were expected to suspend disbelief a little too far I fear, the film is a good one, whereby the culture clashes and personal disputes are soon forgotten as both sides of the pond pull together to get the job done and get their blasted torpedo to work properly.
Bernard Lee, Jeff Richards, Sid James, Fredd Wayne and David Orr, all lend great support to what essentially a very entertaining and thrilling movie. Don't write this one off just because the main body of it involves oil and overalls it really is quite good.
Although his 1942 movie debut was in a musical, he none the less spent his first two or three years in Hollywood, alternating between dramatic and musical roles almost with every picture. Who can forget his incarcerated French patriot in The Cross of Lorraine, The murderous and sinister husband in Christmas Holiday, or the vengeful orphan determined to bring down a mafia kingpin in 1950's Black Hand?
Seagulls over Sorrento, a British made film, is yet another example of Kelly's dramatic talents as he plays an American Naval Scientist on loan to the Royal Navy to help perfect a new top secret torpedo weapon. With him on this trip are two American seamen who just happen to be expert torpedo engineers.
Despite the weapon being stripped, checked, reassembled and checked again at least a dozen times over, it has none the less exploded immediately after launch on all it's previous sea trials killing everyone involved on what has become to be regarded as a suicide mission.
John Justin plays Kelly's British counterpart, who disapproves of Kelly butting his Yankee nose in, as he believes national pride is at stake.
There is also trouble between the ratings too, as the brave British Matlows and their brash American cousins rub each other up the wrong way from the start, a major bone of contention being that the Americans are there purely on engineering duties, whereby the British sailors are there for blowing themselves to smithereens on command for Queen and country duties.
This is also not helped by the only weak plot twist in the entire picture. There are only two American sailors and five British ratings, and by pure coincidence one of the yanks seems to be responsible for stealing one of the limey's girlfriends during the war. What were the chances of that? It's a small world you bet ya!
But despite this one criticism, where we the audience were expected to suspend disbelief a little too far I fear, the film is a good one, whereby the culture clashes and personal disputes are soon forgotten as both sides of the pond pull together to get the job done and get their blasted torpedo to work properly.
Bernard Lee, Jeff Richards, Sid James, Fredd Wayne and David Orr, all lend great support to what essentially a very entertaining and thrilling movie. Don't write this one off just because the main body of it involves oil and overalls it really is quite good.
Huh?
verbusen11 October 2005
Warning: Spoilers
Why did they make this movie? It's about Navy guys working to perfect a torpedo. Huh? Why would they make something so dry? The guys involved are not on the front line so there is no war action, just guys working in a lab. Now granted I may be a fool making this review if they were on the front line because I'll admit I turned it off and didn't see the whole thing (saw maybe a quarter actually), but as desperate as I may be to see a good war actioner, this one barked loud and forced me to turn it off. If you want to see a movie about guys perfecting a torpedo I think John Wayne (maybe Cary Grant "Destination Tokyo"?) was in one that exposed the faulty detonators but the character was a Captain of a sub and it was a true story. I doubt 100 people will actually watch this whole movie if they have a choice in entertainment.
Gene Kelly in a military picture? And, serving with the Royal Navy?!
planktonrules18 October 2018
The first thing I thought when I saw the webpage for this on IMDB was "Is THAT Gene Kelly and why does he look so tough?!". Yes, despite his pretty dancing boy image, sometimes Kelly made other films...tough films such as "The Black Hand". "Pilot #5" and this one, "Seagulls Over Sorrento" (also known as "Crest of the Wave"). I do appreciate how he didn't allow himself to be typecast....but did this abberation work?
This film was set in the present day...and it took me a bit to realize it was not a WWII picture. Some British submariners are working on a new explosive for their torpedoes and there is an explosion...killing their expert. Since no one else in the British Navy knows about this explosive, an American officer (Lt. Bradville....played by Kelly) is stationed on the Scottish island where the work is being done. He brings along two assistants....though some of the sailors seem taken aback with them...and it's a case of US versus THEM (much like in the film "The Devil's Brigade").
Despite being a military film, because there's no war going on, it's not an especially exciting movie. Now this is NOT to say it's bad in any way...but it's not action-packed and is much more cerebral than you'd likely expect. Well made and interesting.
This film was set in the present day...and it took me a bit to realize it was not a WWII picture. Some British submariners are working on a new explosive for their torpedoes and there is an explosion...killing their expert. Since no one else in the British Navy knows about this explosive, an American officer (Lt. Bradville....played by Kelly) is stationed on the Scottish island where the work is being done. He brings along two assistants....though some of the sailors seem taken aback with them...and it's a case of US versus THEM (much like in the film "The Devil's Brigade").
Despite being a military film, because there's no war going on, it's not an especially exciting movie. Now this is NOT to say it's bad in any way...but it's not action-packed and is much more cerebral than you'd likely expect. Well made and interesting.
Backfiring torpedoes
clanciai29 October 2018
How can a torpedo be so exciting? It's a dead thing, and still it keeps the whole film constantly growing in suspense and expectation, and whatever you expect, you will not be disappointed. Gene Kelly makes a very unusual role for a change, no dancing and singing here but only totally matter-of-fact science and technical expertise.
They are testing torpedos on a remote base laboratory on an island outside Scotland, and the film begins with a disastrous failure with an irreplaceable casualty, the expert who finished the job and made the new torpedo technically perfect, and then something went wrong, and everything exploded. The expert in charge survived but not for long and took his possible secrets with him. In his place Gene Kelly is procured.
It's a chamber drama only beteen men, but it never gets claustrophobic although they are strictly confined. Instead a very special drama keeps developing concerning the topredo and its increasing problem complex. The Boulting brothers only made extremely interesting films for their concentration on human factors and human imperfections, and although highly specialised and restricted to science and technics, this is no exception. The húman factor takes over the show with a vengeance.
A worthy addition to my collection of British films.
davidallen-8412227 September 2021
I first saw this film as an 8 year old and went along with my family in eager anticipation of seeing a Gene Kelly musical which my
mother thought it would be. Needless to say I came away feeling disappointed at having viewed a dry black and white offering
with no songs or dances and no women at all. More than sixty years later remembering the above , I purchased the DVD determined
to fairly re-assess the film and now admit to enjoying it on it's own merits.
It's a nice intimate little piece with a good sense of atmosphere that highlights the challenges of men of diverse characters and backgrounds thrown together in an isolated location devoid of women. Many familiar faces from British films of the 1950's all of whom contribute to the very human elements of the plot. Sid James is here given much more screen time than in previous efforts and he actually seems to appear just as frequently as Gene Kelly which may come as a surprise to some. Kelly is fine in a role that hardly stretches his acting ability any more than his British counterpart ; John Justin. Bernard Lee is as strong and reliable as ever and I must single out David Orr whose attractive and ultimately haunting contribution impressed me over and above them all.
I recommend this near forgotten but surprisingly pleasing gem to those like me who relish watching intimate films on their own.
It's a nice intimate little piece with a good sense of atmosphere that highlights the challenges of men of diverse characters and backgrounds thrown together in an isolated location devoid of women. Many familiar faces from British films of the 1950's all of whom contribute to the very human elements of the plot. Sid James is here given much more screen time than in previous efforts and he actually seems to appear just as frequently as Gene Kelly which may come as a surprise to some. Kelly is fine in a role that hardly stretches his acting ability any more than his British counterpart ; John Justin. Bernard Lee is as strong and reliable as ever and I must single out David Orr whose attractive and ultimately haunting contribution impressed me over and above them all.
I recommend this near forgotten but surprisingly pleasing gem to those like me who relish watching intimate films on their own.
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