Fuoco sullo Yangtse

Strong drama about the 1949 incident involving HMS Amethyst. Quite real looking for a 1957 film, even the acting isn't as stilted as most films from that era. The battle sceanes are excellently done using real ships.

Well worth watching for some history about an incident which seems to have been forgotten about.

The "Amethyst Incident" (also known as the "Yangtse Incident" ) is a mostly forgotten bit of history involving Great Britain and the Chinese Communist revolutionaries. In April, 1949, the frigate Amethyst was headed up the Yangste river to bring supplies to British diplomats. However, while this was in no way a military mission, the ship was attacked and severely damaged by shore batteries. And, for three months, the ship was stuck in a mud bank...until some sort of diplomatic solution could be arranged. But, with revolutions, negotiations were pretty much a waste of time. Eventually, the commander of the ship had no choice but to try to slip away during the cover of darkness...and this film is about this three month event.

This story was told in a very straight forward manner...with little in the way of jingoism nor over-the-top patriotism. The acting was also quite fine, though I did object to something this British production did which Hollywood was also fond of doing...having Caucasian actors playing Asians. In this case, Akim Tamiroff played the Chinese leader....which is odd, as Keye Luke (an ethnically Chinese man) played his second in command. But this is my only complaint in an otherwise well made and enjoyable historical film. Well worth seeing.

Such a film surely deserves a DVD release, especially as the real AMETHYST took a starring role in the film. As several contributors have mentioned the fact that this action has now been largely forgotten, there's even more reason for such a release. I can clearly remember hearing the news of the AMETHYST's predicament and then her heroic breakout, though I was only age 8 at the time. The late 1940s were pretty grim, with a couple of appalling winters, food rationing and fuel shortages - we needed a boost to our morale, and Lt.Cdr Kerans certainly gave us that.

I don't think any contributor has mentioned the very important role played by Able Seacat Simon aboard the ship - I'm sure he contributed greatly to the crew's morale.

"The Gift Horse", based on the epic raid on the St. Nazaire dockyard, is another naval film which is surely overdue for DVD release.

Brtiain during the 1950's (when it had an thriving film industry) produced a plethora of fine war films, usually in black and white which gave a documentary feel about them and added to the realism and usually used only British actors (When made in colour and Cinemascope and usually with an imported US star they felt more contrived- The Bridge on the River Kwai excepted) Many have gone on to become classics like Ice Cold in Alex, The Dam Busters, The Cruel Sea and Reach For The Sky.

Yangtze Incident, the true story of the attack on HMS Amethyst by the Communist forces in China in 1949 is also one of the better ones and a bit unjustly forgotten about. It reunited Richard Todd with his Dam Busters helmer Michael Anderson and was produced by Herbert Wilcox (husband of Anna Neagle) shortly before he went bankrupt. The upper lips of the cast has never been stiffer but the heroics are natural and never overdone and the action scenes are tremendously exciting and all the better for using real and actual ships (The Battle of the River Plate for this reason is such a disappointment because the ships used bore little or no resemblance to the actual ones (exept one the INS Delhi is the actual HMS Achillies), especially the American heavy cruiser portraying the part of the Graf Spee}

The acting of the cast is uniformly (sic!) excellent with Richard Todd giving once again a low key but nevertheless authoritative performance

( he Jack Hawkins and Kenneth More seem to have the monopoly on this type of role)

All in all a good film the king they don't make any more and a pleasant and relaxing way to while a way a couple of hours on a cold wet miserable Sunday afternoon.

The best British filmmakers are capable of making a masterpiece that ranks with their best graphic painters of previous centuries in terms of their perfection of the art. Everything about this film is superb; story, directing, acting, cinematography etc. It's also a real 'cliff hanger' because, until the very end, it's not at all clear how they could get out of that mess. Watch and be 'mesmerized' my fellow film lovers.