In May 1941 the mighty German battleship Bismarck, accompanied by the cruiser Prinz Eugen, left her home port in the Baltic on a mission to attack British convoys in the North Atlantic. The two ships were intercepted in the Denmark Strait, between Greenland and Iceland, by the British warships HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales. In the ensuing exchange of fire the Hood was sunk, with the loss of all but three of her crew, and the Prince of Wales and the Bismarck were both damaged. The German commander, Admiral Günther Lütjens, therefore decided to return to a port in occupied France so that the Bismarck could be repaired. The ship was, however, pursued across the Atlantic by the Royal Navy, determined to avenge the loss of the Hood and to neutralise the threat which the Bismarck posed to British shipping.
"Sink the Bismarck!" is made in a semi-documentary style, concentrating less upon the actual combatants than upon what have been described as the "unsung back-room planners". (The documentary effect is enhanced by having the American journalist Ed Murrow repeat some of his wartime radio broadcasts from London). The main character, played by Kenneth More, is Captain Jonathan Shepard, the Admiralty's Chief of Operations, responsible for directing the operation from a war room in London. Michael Hordern, playing the Admiral leading the hunt for the Bismarck at sea, has a much smaller role. (Historically this would have been Admiral Sir John Tovey, but his name is never given in the film).
More was one of those actors who had a fairly small range but who was capable of giving some very good performances within it. He specialised in playing calm, imperturbable upper-middle-class Englishmen or Scotsmen, often officers in the armed forces. (He could often look out of his depth when he tried to go too far outside this range). Here, however, he is excellent. Shepard is a fictitious character; the film- makers insisted in the closing credits that he was not to be identified with Captain Ralph Edwards, the real Chief of Operations during this period. More plays him as, outwardly, a typical stiff-upper-lip Briton of the era, but one who beneath his calm façade is hiding his own personal traumas. His work is physically less dangerous than service at sea would be, yet nevertheless extremely stressful emotionally; one of Shepard's colleagues, unable to cope with the strain, has announced that he will resign his job in the operations room to take up a position as commander of a naval vessel.
In some ways the film is very accurate; the battle scenes were shot using scale models of the actual ships involved. There are a number of historical inaccuracies, but I suspect that these are not "goofs" in the sense of inadvertent errors made through carelessness but deliberate departures from historical fact for the sake of dramatic licence. During the chase the Bismarck sinks a destroyer named HMS Solent; no British destroyers were lost in the battle, and although there was an "HMS Solent" during the war it was a submarine, not a destroyer. A Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is shot down, although no aircraft were lost in the actual battle. Both these details were added to increase dramatic tension; one of the crew of the bomber is Shepard's son Tom, and his father must endure an agonising wait for news of his son.
Perhaps the greatest departure from historical reality concerns the character of Admiral Lütjens. Karel těpánek plays him as a fanatical Nazi, arrogant and absurdly overconfident. (Peter Finch had given a much more sympathetic portrayal of a senior German naval officer in "Battle of the River Plate" four years earlier). He barks at his crew "Never forget that you are Nazis!"; a real Nazi would probably have said "Never forget that you are National Socialists!" but the truth is that the real Lütjens was not a Nazi at all. He disliked the regime for which he was fighting and, contrary to the way he is portrayed here, was very pessimistic about the Bismarck's chance of success. Yet in the context of the film těpánek's performance is a good one, increasing the dramatic contrast between Lütjens and Shepard, both more cautious and more humane.
Patriotic wartime epics, often based upon true stories, were popular in the British cinema during the fifties and sixties, so it is not surprising that the hunt for the Bismarck should have furnished the material for a how-we-won-the-war film. Compared to the high emotions of something like "The Dambusters", perhaps the greatest true story war film, it can at times seem rather cool, yet it is still undoubtedly one of Britain's better efforts in the genre, due particularly to More's efforts. 7/10
"Sink the Bismarck!" is made in a semi-documentary style, concentrating less upon the actual combatants than upon what have been described as the "unsung back-room planners". (The documentary effect is enhanced by having the American journalist Ed Murrow repeat some of his wartime radio broadcasts from London). The main character, played by Kenneth More, is Captain Jonathan Shepard, the Admiralty's Chief of Operations, responsible for directing the operation from a war room in London. Michael Hordern, playing the Admiral leading the hunt for the Bismarck at sea, has a much smaller role. (Historically this would have been Admiral Sir John Tovey, but his name is never given in the film).
More was one of those actors who had a fairly small range but who was capable of giving some very good performances within it. He specialised in playing calm, imperturbable upper-middle-class Englishmen or Scotsmen, often officers in the armed forces. (He could often look out of his depth when he tried to go too far outside this range). Here, however, he is excellent. Shepard is a fictitious character; the film- makers insisted in the closing credits that he was not to be identified with Captain Ralph Edwards, the real Chief of Operations during this period. More plays him as, outwardly, a typical stiff-upper-lip Briton of the era, but one who beneath his calm façade is hiding his own personal traumas. His work is physically less dangerous than service at sea would be, yet nevertheless extremely stressful emotionally; one of Shepard's colleagues, unable to cope with the strain, has announced that he will resign his job in the operations room to take up a position as commander of a naval vessel.
In some ways the film is very accurate; the battle scenes were shot using scale models of the actual ships involved. There are a number of historical inaccuracies, but I suspect that these are not "goofs" in the sense of inadvertent errors made through carelessness but deliberate departures from historical fact for the sake of dramatic licence. During the chase the Bismarck sinks a destroyer named HMS Solent; no British destroyers were lost in the battle, and although there was an "HMS Solent" during the war it was a submarine, not a destroyer. A Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is shot down, although no aircraft were lost in the actual battle. Both these details were added to increase dramatic tension; one of the crew of the bomber is Shepard's son Tom, and his father must endure an agonising wait for news of his son.
Perhaps the greatest departure from historical reality concerns the character of Admiral Lütjens. Karel těpánek plays him as a fanatical Nazi, arrogant and absurdly overconfident. (Peter Finch had given a much more sympathetic portrayal of a senior German naval officer in "Battle of the River Plate" four years earlier). He barks at his crew "Never forget that you are Nazis!"; a real Nazi would probably have said "Never forget that you are National Socialists!" but the truth is that the real Lütjens was not a Nazi at all. He disliked the regime for which he was fighting and, contrary to the way he is portrayed here, was very pessimistic about the Bismarck's chance of success. Yet in the context of the film těpánek's performance is a good one, increasing the dramatic contrast between Lütjens and Shepard, both more cautious and more humane.
Patriotic wartime epics, often based upon true stories, were popular in the British cinema during the fifties and sixties, so it is not surprising that the hunt for the Bismarck should have furnished the material for a how-we-won-the-war film. Compared to the high emotions of something like "The Dambusters", perhaps the greatest true story war film, it can at times seem rather cool, yet it is still undoubtedly one of Britain's better efforts in the genre, due particularly to More's efforts. 7/10
