Western Approaches (1944) User Reviews

Blue

[boblipton · 7/10 · 19 November 2020]

It's a feature story from the Crown Film Unit. A merchant ship has been sunk, and its 22 survivors under P.J. Pyecraft wait for the Royal Navy to send out a ship to rescue them. It's done, but there's a U-Boat whose captain knows the situation, and is waiting with the boat's last two torpedoes to pick off the unsuspecting warship.

It's one of those stiff-upper-lip movies, with all the facilities that the British authorities can give it. What makes it stand out from the crowd is Jack Cardiff's Technicolor camerawork: not just the portrait shots that offer noble visages under pressure, but the blues: the azure blue of the sky, the green-blue of the sea, and the steel blue of the ships' interiors.... and occasional snatches of that dark, velvety midnight blue that seems unique to British Technicolor, with the pink-faced, unblinking faces of the men looking at radios and dials and such. Cardiff's abilities with Technicolor have never been matched, and here his camera paints the scenes like Rembrandt, if Rembrandt ever worked in blue; I don't recall he ever did.

WESTERN APPROACHES (Pat Jackson, 1944) ***1/2

[Bunuel1976 · 8/10 · 6 January 2014]

This was yet another classic British wartime 'documentary', one I was wary of in view of its feature-length (80 minutes) – especially, at this juncture, having been somewhat let down by a few of its contemporaneous ilk – but which would prove a surprisingly positive experience. Like the recently-viewed THE SILENT VILLAGE (1943), the documentary epithet (not to mention its title!) is misleading here, since it is actually a narrative film – albeit a re-enactment of a true WWII episode – that just happens to feature non-professional actors.

Indeed, it can be said that such wartime efforts were "neo-realist" before the term was even coined or the style had actually taken off in Italy! Still, it is debatable whether the end result would have been this noteworthy had professional performers been employed rather than real naval servicemen – since it tells a standard (albeit undeniably gripping) tale of a rescue at sea and the ensuing scuttling of a U-Boat!

Apart from Clifton Parker's evocative score, two novelty aspects are employed here that make the whole show all the more appealing to the casual viewer: the fact that it was shot in Technicolor (by the great Jack Cardiff, no less); the documentary pedigree itself allowed for (or, I should say, excused) the copious use of language that would otherwise not have been permissible for the era – such as "bastards", "bloody", "damn" and "hell"...not to mention sketches of naked women adorning the walls of the radio operators' quarters! For what it is worth, director Jackson would eventually break into commercial film-making but never again approached the reasonable level of excellence achieved in this case!

A work of Art!

[freddydcain · 7/10 · 27 September 2019]

If you love war movies and the classic then this film is for you. Real heroes, hats off to all military.

Deserves to be much better known

[enochsneed · 10/10 · 18 June 2007]

The British film industry created a genre in the documentary-type war movie (San Demetrio London, The Cruel Sea, The Colditz Story, etc., etc.) and many of these are now regarded as classics. I am very surprised to see there are no comments on IMDb for 'Western Approaches' because it's a great little film and unique in several ways.

Firstly, it was shot in colour by Jack Cardiff, one of the best cinematographers around (think of the use of colour in 'Black Narcissus' and 'The Red Shoes'). The small red sail of the lifeboat set against the unending grey of the sea makes for some wonderful images.

Second, the cast were genuine merchant seaman who had fought in the Battle of the Atlantic. Their performances may not be up to professional standards perhaps, but they are heartfelt - thanks to their understanding of the situation torpedoed seamen faced in the war.

The plot builds a good deal of suspense into the dilemma of the sailors who want to be rescued, of course, but know they are being used as a decoy for another U-Boat kill.

If you get the chance to see this, don't miss it, it's a fine piece of film-making.

Recommended reading "Retake Please Night Mail to Western Approaches" by Pat Jackson

[carol-andrew · 9/10 · 1 September 2008]

Very worthwhile reading Pat Jackson's memoir of his beginnings in film, in "Retake Please - Night Mail to Western Approaches" Conversational style easy to follow, and fascinating to learn how he and his crew achieved what they did, sometime through great hardship. He gives a lot of detail as to how effects were achieved, or not as the case may be. Reading his accounts brings home how ground breaking he was in creating his "documentary" style. Much criticism has been levelled at other war documentarians (EG Frank Hurley, II World war, Antarctic, photographer) for falsifying photos in order to achieve the romance of or horror of what they wanted to convey. It is clear in this memoir that Pat Jackson saw himself as having a "rallying the troops" job to do and he had no qualms using the illusions capable in the film technology of the time to get his message across. The most satisfying aspect of this memoir is his warmth and fondness for the people he met along the way, he often quotes from their first meetings in great detail, particularly the non professional casts he employed in Western Approaches. A wonderful read.

A British 'Rome Open City'?

[cawkwell500 · 9/10 · 9 May 2013]

'Rome Open City', premiered in September 1945, was made with non- professionals; it depicted the war with dramatic intensity; it was filmed in the street as well as the studio. But if you change 'in the street' to 'on the open sea' I could as well be referring to 'Western Approaches' premiered almost a year earlier in December 1944. Rossellini of course went on to even greater things, whereas Pat Jackson, the maker of 'Western Approaches', went on to Hollywood and oblivion of a kind. Pity, because his wartime film is outstanding.

For two reasons. It seems to be a drama but is it a documentary about the Atlantic convoys and the perils they faced? or is it a drama made realistic by documentary techniques? That ambivalence makes the film much more compelling, and Jackson can especially take the credit for the melodramatic but still credible idea at the centre of the film which lends it the suspense proper to a fiction film, that of the triangular situation between lifeboat, u-boat and destroyer.

The second reason is the use of non-professionals, schooled in part by Jackson to use eye and voice, but also semi-improvising on the script, following it but also saying things in their own words (including a lot of natural naval swearing which the censors jumped upon unfortunately). They bring no baggage of other roles and lend an authenticity at all levels from captain to other officers to the merchant seamen in the lifeboat. It makes the film mesmerizing. Not to be sure Robert Bresson's 'involuntary expressive' but certainly naturally rather than artificially expressive which should be cinema's truest technique.

www.timcawkwell.co.uk

Duel of Wits in the North Atlantic.

[rmax304823 · 5/10 · 18 April 2015]

It's the middle of the war and there is a gap in mid-Atlantic between North America and England, desperate for supplies. A freighter is torpedoed and half a dozen crew find themselves adrift in a lifeboat with a makeshift sail, heading for the Irish coast which is far, far away. So far that it's doubtful they'll make it.

The radio operator (or, pardon me, the wireless operator) has brought along a small, battery-operated transmitter, which he uses to send distress signals in hopes that a friendly vessel will pick them up. One does, another cargo ship, and she heads towards the lifeboat's position. The problem is that a U-boat has also received the calls. The KaEl assumes, correctly, that a British ship is coming to their rescue, so the U-boat bides its time, waiting for juicier fruit.

The cargo ship finally comes, just as Sparks has exhausted the batteries of his transmitter, but despite the warnings of the men in the boat, the U-boat manages to put a torpedo into the rescue ship. The submarine is tricked into surfacing and there is a shoot out at sea.

It was all filmed at sea and I can understand the pride shown by the director on the audio commentary. Yet, on the whole, it was disappointing. The actors were drawn from the ranks of seamen. They have the proper face but they can't act, and it shows. Two kinds of film were used in the shooting and one, three-strip technicolor, is clearly superior to the other.

The Brits made some splendid movies during and after the war but in this instance one misses the faces that were to become so familiar. Where is Denholm Elliot? Shouldn't Dirk Bogarde be in here somewhere? And I longed for Bernard Lee. True, the score was conducted by Muir Matheson but Malcolm Arnold is nowhere in sight.

It's a good, taut story but it lacks professionalism.

One of the All-Time Great Movies!

[JohnHowardReid · 9/10 · 8 October 2011]

Gripping wartime re-enactment of perils at sea by the very people who experienced the harrowing events here depicted (with one or two exceptions), this is an engrossing movie with some of the finest color photography of the decade. Jackson's direction of his non-professional cast is so immaculately adept, it's hard to believe that these are real people on the screen, re-living real events, not actors going through their paces in a script carefully honed for the utmost drama and suspense. True, real events have been telescoped, but, if anything, the terrors we see on the screen have been diluted, rather than magnified. In fact, the whole movie is a tribute not only to the men of the Royal Navy, but to the skill of the film-makers.

This was writer-director Pat Jackson's first feature film, yet oddly he was not able to capitalize on his sudden fame. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer put him under contract, but kept him hanging around doing nothing (and getting paid for it) until handing him a routine "B" assignment starring Ann Sothern and Zachary Scott, Shadow on the Wall, to direct in 1950.

Returning to England, Jackson directed White Corridors and one of the Somerset Maugham stories in Encore in 1951. A disappointing Anthony Steel vehicle, intended as an "A" feature but understandably released as a "B", Something Money Can't Buy, followed in 1952. Jackson then remained idle until 1956 when he directed a routine Belinda Lee vehicle, The Feminine Touch, which even made the lovely Belinda seem dull and uninspired. A boring hero (George Baker) didn't help either; while a similarly lack-luster cast (Tony Britton, Sylvia Sims, Jack Watling) and script undermined The Birthday Present (1957). Jackson was fast earning a reputation as a routine hack, but managed to redeem himself with Virgin Island (1959) in which he had the services of a fine group of players headed by Sidney Poitier, John Cassavettes, Virgina Maskell. Although the movie achieved great notices, it failed to recoup its modest negative cost.

My guess is that at this point Jackson lost interest – and no wonder! He found work directing two "B" features, Snowball (1960) and Seven Keys (1961). His remaining six films, with the exception of What a Carve Up! which successfully attempted to cash in on the popularity of the Carry On movies – in fact many critics (including me) headlined our reviews, Carry On Carving – were likewise disappointments. In 1964 and 1968, he even directed and wrote quota quickies, Seventy Deadly Pills and On the Run, respectively, for the Children's Film Foundation. So that makes On the Run actually his last movie. King Arthur, the Young Warlord (1975) is a TV cut-down – as was To Chase a Million (1967).

P.S. I've omitted Don't Talk to Strange Men (1962) from this line-up. It was banned in 1962 and I've never seen it, although reportedly it is an effective (if very small-scale) thriller.