Revolta em Alto Mar

"Damn the Defiant." a 1962 film directed by Lewis Gilbert, is based on an actual incident, known as the Spithead Mutiny which took place during the 1797 war with France.

The ship is led by Captain Crawford (Alec Guinness), a fair man who is afraid to rattle the cage of his next in command, the sadistic Lieutenant Scott-Padget (Dirk Bogarde), who is well-connected and has ruined the careers of previous captains.

The ambitious Scott-Padget, however, is determined to take over the ship and wants things his way. To this end, he brutalizes Crawford's young son, who is on board as a midshipman, knowing that the principled Crawford will not interfere.

However, there are mutineers on board, led by Vizard (Anthony Quayle) who have written a petition for better food and more money. They hate Scott-Padget, and if they take control, he's in big trouble.

This is a very good film with suspense as well as excitement, dominated by the acting of Guinness and Bogarde. Guinness is brilliant - you can see him making an effort to control his anger, and one also sees his great pain. When he at last asserts himself, he is very noble.

Director Gilbert had to fight for Bogarde, so devalued was he by Hollywood, but Guinness spoke up for the actor as well, and he was cast. He does a great job - handsome, outwardly polite, and mean as dirt. Anthony Quayle is excellent as Vizard, who, in leading his men, demands patience.

Absorbing and entertaining, even if movies on the high seas aren't your thing.

I am quite surprised that this film only has a rather ordinary score of 7.1 at this time, as it's one of the best naval films I have seen--and perhaps the best one about this period in history. Exceptionally good acting and writing make this a definite must-see.

The story itself is based very, very loosely upon various mutinies and strikes that occurred in 1797 aboard British war ships. In the film, crew members were pushed to do this desperate act due to their sadistic treatment at the hands of some of the officers (in particular, Dirk Bogarde's character). However, in reality, the strikes and mutinies occurred for far less noble reasons--such as for higher pay or to spread the spirit of the French Revolution to the British navy. Still, despite this discrepancy, the film is top entertainment.

The film begins with the Captain (Alec Guinness) preparing to return to sea with his very young son on board his first assignment. While Guinness seems like a decent sort of man, you immediately are taken aback by the violent press gangs that secure replacement crew members by kidnapping hapless Brits. In addition, once the cruise begins, you can't help but hate Bogarde as the second in command. While he is competent, he's also a sadist and power-hungry. Again and again, he ignores the Captain's orders and abuses the crew--pushing the men to the breaking point. While the Captain is no wimp, Bogarde finds ways to assert himself without doing enough to merit his arrest--at least until late in the film.

The acting by Guinness and Bogarde is awfully good and makes the film. Bogarde does a great job of playing an evil bully, though the most kudos should go to Guinness, as his character has a lot of depth--making this one of his better film roles. However, this is no surprise as he was a wonderful actor and had an astounding skill at immersing himself into a very wide range of characters--and doing it in a very believable and understated way. Interestingly enough, this film was very quickly made (so that Guinness could get back to filming LAWRENCE OF ARABIA) but you sure can't tell that from his performance. In addition, the supporting actors really did an excellent job and I have no real complaints about anything in the film--a rarity for a picky guy like me.

Exceptional throughout and quite gripping--this film is tough not to like and will keep you on the edge of your seats.

I remember seeing H.M.S. Defiant in the theater when it came out back in 1962. It's too bad my VHS copy is formatted. One really needs the wide screen to appreciate the vast sweep of this wonderful sea adventure.

The Defiant sets sail from the naval harbor at Spithead just before the ships of the Channel Fleet are ready to start an organized mutiny. So with no contact between them and the ships at Spithead or in the Mediterranean, the men of the Defiant have to work out their own course of action. That action is the basis for what happens.

They've got an unwitting ally in the ship's executive officer, Scott- Padget played by Dirk Bogarde. A future Drake or Hawkins with influence and a taste for sadism. He looks to usurp the authority of Captain Crawford who is played by Alec Guinness. The conflict between them plays into the hands of the mutineers.

In that other famous story of the sea, Mutiny on the Bounty, Fletcher Christian points out to Captain Bligh that the men drafted into the Royal Navy from the press gangs aren't king and country volunteers. Neither are these people in the foc'sle of the Defiant.

Bogarde plays against type and does it well. He's usually not a villain in film although he had essayed villainous roles before in his career. But Guinness is a wonder. His Captain Crawford, calm, detached, and inspiring in his own way in his patriotism was a role Alec Guinness could be proud of. Totally different than the characters he played in those Ealing studio comedies. This falls more in line with Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai or Colonel Sinclair in Tunes of Glory without the bad character features the other two had.

Great Britain eventually stopped using press gangs, but at the time it was the way the Royal Navy got a crew together. In fact later on during the Napoleonic Wars, the British took to stopping American ships and impressing members of those crews in the Royal Navy. It was one of the causes of the War of 1812.

Two other performances in H.M.S. Defiant are worthy of note. Anthony Quayle as the mutiny leader on the Defiant and Tom Bell one of the mutineers whose rashness nearly blows it all for the seamen and their cause.

Hovering over all of this is the French and to me the highlight of the film is Alec Guinness reminding the men of their duty to prevent a French invasion of their island home. It's a superb piece of drama.

A little Mutiny on the Bounty, a little Horatio Hornblower go into the plot of H.M.S. Defiant. It's a good mix with a superb group of players serving it up for the audience.

This movie is an excellent exploration of the effect that a divided command structure has on the workings of a ship. The characters are well cast and fully developed. We are taken into the workings of the ship and see more idyllic view of life in the wooden world that we saw in the Gregory Peck, Hornblower.

The plot line is good and for people like me who love wooden ships, the scenes of the ships and the naval battles are supurb. If one likes Hornblower or Maturin this is a movie you need to own. The transfer to DVD came out well (I also owned this one on a beta tape) and it is one of those core movies for the history buff.

In April 1789 Captain William Bligh was set adrift off the Friendly Islands by Fletcher Christian and the crew of H.M.S. Bounty, tired of Bligh's bad temper and harsh tongue. Bligh and the loyal crew members (except two killed by cannibals on one island they stopped at) managed to sail the open boat 2,100 miles despite lack of supplies and dangerous seas and weather to safety. Bligh returned to England, and eventually made a second trip to Tahiti to complete his original mission. Christian and most of the Bounty mutineers fled on the Bounty and reached Pitcairn Island, where their descendants live to this day.

The mutiny on the Bounty is the one that most people think of whenever they hear the word "mutiny". Otherwise they think of THE CAINE MUTINY. Actually there have been many mutinies. In 1905 a mutiny on the Russian battleship Potemkin occurred at Odessa on the Black Sea. It was immortalized by Serge Eisenstein in his film of the name POTEMKIN.

It surprises many people outside of England that the Bounty was peanuts compared to the Great Mutiny of 1797 at the Nore and Spithead of the entire British fleet (also the 1931 Invergordon Mutiny of the British fleet during the depression, which was a total surprise). The Great Mutiny is supreme because it occurred just when England was facing revolutionary France in the French Revolutionary Wars. A force being planned by Wolfe Tone and the French General Lazare Hoche was to invade Ireland. By sheer chance the French were unable to take advantage of the moment of England's peril to invade.

The 1797 Mutiny at Spithead was actually successful - various gains in pay and food were made by the sailors. Then came the Nore Mutiny, which was led by a seaman of some leadership qualities named Richard Parker. Parker's demands were impossible, and he apparently toyed with leading the fleet to France. Instead the British Admiralty got tough, and crushed the mutiny. Ironically one of the last ships to give up was H.M.S. Director, which was commanded by William Bligh. It was the second mutiny (of three!) that Bligh would face in his career. Parker was tried for mutiny and executed, as were dozens of other sailors.

It would be nice if some enterprising producer would make an accurate film of the 1797 Mutiny - but until that day comes we are left with two films that roughly approximate the story. There is Peter Ustinov's BILLY BUDD, which is set in the period of the Great Mutiny, and this one. BILLY BUDD has much going for it regarding it's source material (Herman Melville's brilliant study of good and evil, and how they are impossible to separate). Then there is DAMN THE DEFIANT / H.M.S. DEFIANT, which tells the story from the point of view of a single vessel and the evils that permeated all the crew from the Captain to the tars.

Alec Guinness is a well meaning but weak leader who is the Captain of Defiant, and has been stuck with Dirk Bogarde as his new second in command, a socially well-connected sadist. Bogarde is determined to be the real commander of the ship, and is willing to do what is needed to bring Guinness and everyone in sight under heal. Guinness's son is a midshipman on the DEFIANT, and Bogarde keeps finding ways of punishing the young man that Guinness (because of fears of favoritism) will not interfere with. On top of this, during one battle, Guinness loses an arm (a salute to Lord Nelson who was similarly was crippled).

However, the men led by Anthony Quayle, decide to join the mutiny. And then it is Bogarde's turn to sweat.

What were the gripes of the mutineers? Low pay (the government spent money on bribes for votes, but not decent pay). Nothing like pensions for the men - frequently kidnapped by press gangs in the major cities - and left cripples after serving in the naval battles. Food was crap - the quartermasters and the people who sold supplies were in cahoots and sold rotten food to the ships. It was a "lovely life". The wonder is that there weren't more bloodbath mutinies. One (in 1798) on board H.M.S. Hermoine led to the murder of a dozen officers, including the Captain (one Hugh Pigott). Reading of it makes one realize how lucky Bligh and the Admirals were that they did not face the real wrath that was just under the surface.