Sailor of the King (1953) on Netflix
Approved19531h 23mActionDramaWar
In 1940 the German raider Essen sinks the British cruiser Aylesbury in the Pacific. Signalman Andrew Brown, one of two survivors pulled aboard, looks for a way to delay the raider's repairs.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.8/10910 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes44%
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Plot summary
Lieutenant Richard Saville, a young Royal Navy officer on leave, meets Lucinda Bentley, a Portsmouth merchant's daughter, on a London-bound train during the First World War. The two miss their connection and spend a holiday in southern England, and she accepts his proposal of marriage, then withdraws it before they return. Years later, in the Second World War, Saville commands three cruisers guarding a convoy in the Pacific. A British merchant ship signals before the German raider Essen sinks it. His flagship is short of fuel, so Saville keeps the convoy covered and sends the other cruisers in pursuit. The Aylesbury engages the Essen and goes down, leaving two survivors, Petty Officer Wheatley and Signalman Andrew Brown, whom the raider takes aboard.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Sailor of the King (1953)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
Unusually for its period, the American version was filmed with two endings, one in which Brown survives and one in which he is killed, and both were shown in cinemas with audiences asked to choose which they preferred.- Producer Frank McCarthy knew Lord Mountbatten, which secured the British Admiralty's cooperation, and the film became the first American film shot on real British naval ships.
- British actors' union Equity opposed the casting of American Jeffrey Hunter in the lead, and his character was changed to Canadian to accommodate his accent; Equity raised a similar complaint over Rock Hudson in The Sea Devils.
- The role of Jeffrey Hunter's character's mother was originally to have been played by Celia Johnson, who was replaced by Wendy Hiller.
- The real warship's captain, John Trevor Lean D.S.O., played the navigator in the film because he had to be on the bridge at all times, and several of his crew appeared as extras in German uniforms.
- The German raider Essen was portrayed by a fast minelaying cruiser fitted with large mock-up gun turrets over her 4-inch guns, and the torpedo damage that forces her delay at Resolution Island is simply painted on her port bow.
