Pavillon de combat

If a person looked to the movie poster to show them what the movie would be about, the one for "The Eternal Sea" would seriously mislead them. After all, you see the Rear Admiral (Sterling Hayden) locked in the arms of his wife (Alexis Smith). However, this movie isn't really a romance and the scene has little to do with this film.

Instead of a romance, the film is about a career naval officer-- specifically from WWII until 1955. When the film starts, Captain Hoskins (Hayden) is desk-bound and longing to be back in command of a ship since the war is raging. However, when he finally gets a ship after years of waiting, he's severely injured even before he can take actual command of the ship...losing his lower leg in the process. But Hoskins was determined not to be retired and fought the Navy to remain on active duty. But the war ends and so far the film has given the audience little to understand why they made a movie about the guy. His post-WWII career turned out to be far more eventful as he championed jet aircraft on aircraft carriers and took the US fleet into the Korean War.

Overall, this is a mildly interesting lower-budgeted bio-pic. Nothing great, nothing bad about the film...just a decent military film with only a reasonable amount of stock footage (a big plus).

I guess that John H Auer was the main war film provider for the studio; Republic Studio. Sterling Hayden brings much to this one, huge budget for this studio, but the result is not on the John Ford's style scale. Especially with the use of footage combat scenes. It's is tiring after a while. I watched it mainly for the presence of ASPHALT JUNGLE lead. I admit. It is bearable, but sometimes a bit long, boring. If you crave for war features, patriotic or not - and this one belongs to this category - you won't be deceived. Without Sterling Hayden, I am not sure I would have spent one hundred minutes of my life on this movie.

Toward the end of Republic Pictures existence with the demise of the B western and the departure of their number one asset John Wayne, the studio did produce some quality if low budget films. The Eternal Sea is one such film and the studio made good use of naval combat footage from World War II and Korea to integrate them into the story.

Which is the true story of Admiral John Hoskins who lost a leg during the battle of Leyte Gulf, but fought to stay on in the Navy on active duty and doing more than desk duty. As the story unfolds Hoskins fought to have our aircraft carriers adapted to jet airplanes, a difficult task indeed because naval aviation itself was only slightly over 25 years old and just getting settled into propeller planes.

Sterling Hayden plays the courageous and far seeing admiral Hawkins and Alexis Smith his supportive wife who would dearly like to see her man take an honorable retirement. Alexis Smith always had trouble getting cast because she was a tall girl, a first baseman as Bing Crosby said in Here Comes The Groom. No worries here because Sterling Hayden was 6'5" to Alexis's 5'9".

Dean Jagger does a nice job in the role of Hayden's superior and mentor. The Eternal Sea is a real inspirational story and was worthy of a bigger studio and budget than Republic Pictures and the money allocated.

For John H. Auer, a triumph.

A simple tale, yet profound.

Of a real person, facing challenges.

John Madison Hoskins, United States Navy, (1898-1964)

For Sterling Hayden, as John Hoskins, a wonderful performance, as in all his films.

Well supported by Alexis Smith as Mrs Hoskins.

Dean Jagger adds another role to his illustrious career, as Thomas L. Semple.

Ben Cooper as 'Zuggy' Zugbaum. Ben Cooper, never got the acclaim, for his various characterizations, I believe he deserved.

Various costars, Virginia Grey, Hayden Rorke, Douglas Kennedy and Willis Bouchey give good support.

Real naval personnel are portrayed.

Such as Arthur Dewey Struble.

And William F. 'Bull' Halsey.

This is a biopic about Admiral John Hoskins. The movie looks more like a war (or navy recruitment) propaganda than a drama. It's amazing Sterling Hayden can go through 1h 43 min with the same facial expression and wooden acting style. He portrayed the guy as a total jerk (maybe it was true...) I agreed more with his critics in the movie than himself. Especially his antics during the construction of new Princeton were terrible. If I were one of the engineers working on the dockyard I'd kill him. As for the directing, the narrative is pretty flat and devoid of tension. The war scenes are unimpressive and cursory. The only quasi-drama happens when he fights against those who want his retirement and is short-lived. The rest is a documentary style slow-paced storytelling. Perhaps, the only redeeming quality of the movie is its sporadic attempts for making a statement for the disabled.