The Cockleshell Heroes (1955) on Netflix
Major Stringer proposes commandos in folding canoes slip upriver at Bordeaux to mine German ships. He gets volunteers, and a second-in-command, Captain Hugh Thompson, who doubts his methods.
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- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.5/102,361 votes
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Plot summary
In the Second World War, Major Stringer of the Royal Marines proposes a raid on an enemy-held harbor. Folding canoes, he argues, could carry commandos upriver undetected to fix limpet mines to the hulls of German ships at Bordeaux. A small group of volunteers is placed under his command. Stringer is a temporary wartime officer, enthusiastic about daring operations but with no experience of leading men. His second-in-command, Captain Hugh Thompson, is a middle-aged regular, repeatedly passed over for promotion. The two officers embody a clash of cultures in the Royal Marines: Stringer wants daring and initiative, while Thompson trusts the rule book. Sergeant Craig drills the volunteers as Stringer instructs, and Thompson considers his commander's methods too lax.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Cockleshell Heroes (1955)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Trevor Howard and David Lodge nearly drowned while filming a canoe sequence for The Cockleshell Heroes when their canoe overturned.
- The producer Irving Allen had Bryan Forbes rewrite Richard Maibaum's script and direct extra sequences without telling José Ferrer; when Ferrer found out, he left the film.
- The two real survivors told producers they had no idea what cargo the destroyed ships carried; after filming, Broccoli said the Duke of Edinburgh and Lord Mountbatten told him it was radar equipment bound for Japan, so extra sequences were shot at a cost of $5,600.
- Alan Ladd and Richard Widmark were both discussed as possible stars of the film, and when the British Admiralty was approached to co-operate it requested that Spencer Tracy play the lead.
- To win permission to shoot in Portugal, Warwick Films had to make a documentary about the country, April in Portugal, which was directed by Euan Lloyd and featured Trevor Howard.
- The Cockleshell Heroes was the first independent film shot in Britain to use CinemaScope; Warwick had also secured the process for A Prize of Arms.
- The real raid's leader, Lieutenant Colonel Herbert "Blondie" Hasler, was seconded to Warwick Films as a technical advisor, and ex-Corporal Bill Sparks, the other survivor of the raid, also advised.
