San Demetrio London (1943)

A Major Disappointment

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Made during the pre-Ealing comedy era, when the studio was turning out a slew of propagandist dramas with a documentary feel (others included WENT THE DAY WELL? (1942), and THE FOREMAN WENT TO France (also 1942)), SAN DEMETRIO London tells the story of a British merchant ship blown up in 1940. The crew spend some time marooned in a life-boat, but eventually return to the stricken ship and manage to patrol it back to safety in the United Kingdom.Co-directed by Charles Frend and Robert Hamer, the film has its roots in documentary, ranging from the use of stock footage to the way in which it examines the lives of ordinary sailors coping with extraordinary situations. The plight of Greaser John Boyle (Mervyn Johns) is sensitively handled, as he quite literally works himself to death and passes away at sea, dreaming of the nylon stockings he has bought for his wife as a present. He is given a funeral with full naval honors. Likewise Messboy John Jamieson's (Gordon Jackson's) transition from callow youth into mature deckhand is cleverly depicted, as some of his suggestions - initially dismissed as impractical by Chief Engineer Pollard (Walter Fitzgerald) turn out to be inspired, helping the crew survive their ordeal.The film as a whole extols the value of community, of human beings setting aside their regional and national differences and learning how to pull together in times of extreme stress. "Yank" Preston (played by the Canadian Robert Beatty), an American passing for a Canadian, begins the film as something of a rebel, preferring the bottle to the responsibility of hard work, but soon proves to be an invaluable member of the crew. It is he who provides the Bible so that Boyle can be given an appropriate send-off to the other world. Even though the bombing of British cities had largely ceased by 1943 - the time of the film's release - it was important that people on the Home Front bonded together to aid the war effort, and SAN DEMETRIO London fulfilled an important purpose in communicating this message.As befits a studio relying mostly on performances and directorial cunning rather than elaborate special effects, the film concentrates on characterization rather than incident. Some of the action sequences might seem a little rudimentary now - especially with the use of back-projections - but we have to remember that the film was produced under difficult conditions with a limited budget. Directors Frend and Hamer make skillful use of such constraints to produce a film that is at once surprisingly touching as well as stirring in its impact.

I rather warmed to this movie at its very opening. The San Demetrio, a good-sized tanker, being in port, is a bit loosely run. Two officers sit at a table and crack open a bottle. A third junior officer enters the compartment and the others invite him to join them. "What? At this time of day? Thanks." Alas, today no more booze on British ships.It's 1940 and the San Demetrio loads up on oil at Galveston, Texas. Two new hands are hired, one a stereotypical bragging Texan. "I eat boatswains raw!" He shows up at the gangway drunk and is splashed with a bucket of water. He's a terrible actor but there are some familiar and reliable people in the cast: Mervyn Johns (aka Bob Cratchett in Alistair Sims' "Christmas Carol"), James Donald, Ralph Michael, and a youthful Gordon Jackson. Always nice to see old friends.On the return trip the San Demetrio runs into a German raider, is hit twice, set afire, and abandoned. You don't want to be aboard an oil tanker on fire. The lifeboat carrying the officers is picked up by another ship in the convoy but the enlisted men's boat is alone on the icy sea. They row until they're battered about, sick, and exhausted, and the next day find the San Demetrio, burning but still afloat. They board her and set about making the scorched and broken vessel seaworthy again.Admirable attention is paid to the details of the work. (How do you steer a ship towards home without a compass?) The snipes get their due. In its depiction of minor circumstantial demands, often dangerous, it reminds me a little of "The Wreck of the Mary Deare." The screenplay is original, not from a novel, and the writers knew the lingo. The San Demetrio is low in the water and a large wave sweeps over her stern. "That's what I call pooping," the chief yells out. He's right. The stern was, and sometimes still is, called the poop deck.The special effects are of the period. There is little drama -- a man dies and is buried at sea -- and what there is, is all the more effective. It's a modest tale of the gallantry in hard and skillful work and it's pretty good.

The captain of the Jervis Bay, Captain E. S. F. Fegen Royal Navy, was the escort commander for convoy HX84 traveling between Halifax and Great Britain.The Jervis Bay was an armed merchant cruiser only equipped with four inch guns but quite adequate to deal with any German U boats which might happen to ' chance their arm. 'It was therefore quite a shock when he encountered the German pocket battleship, Admiral Scheer in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Certainly not where he would have expected a German surface raider to be.Taking a gamble Captain Fegen engaged the raider, itself equipped with radar controlled eleven inch guns, and thus allowed the convoy a further twenty minutes to escape into the darkness which by that time was beginning to fall.Several of the merchant ships were still badly damaged subsequently by the Admiral Scheer. San Demetrio was abandoned by her captain and crew, but later rejoined by part of her crew without the captain. This latter point together with the refusal to accept assistance once in home waters allowed the insurers to make salvage payments to all who embarked on the perilous voyage.A member of the party interviewed after the war said that the men would have made every effort to save the ship and cargo in any event. Great Britain being upon its knees and fighting alone for her very existence against Germany, Italy and Japan with a neutral USSR and USA observing with a casual interest.The King later awarded Captain Fegen the Victoria Cross in recognition of the courageous sacrifice of himself and his crew.The film renders an entertaining account of this annal of the sea.

The San Demetrio is a tanker that is apart of an trans-Atlantic convoy travelling to England from the States. When the convoy is attacked by an U-boat their destroyer is sunk and the San Demetrio is damaged very badly and the crew abandon ship. All the life boats are picked up but one boat drifts and is lost. Weeks later the crew in the lifeboat come across a ship, only to find that the San Demetrio has survived despite burning badly. The crew re-board the ship but find that getting the fire out is only the first of the dangers they must overcome.I must have read the wrong synopsis when I thought of watching this film – I thought it was a standard action packed film where the crew of a tanker battle against the u-boat. Regardless of this, I was glad I watched it as it was different from the usual wartime propaganda in some ways and was quite enjoyable, if not thrilling. The plot shows the men battle through difficult conditions and being heroes without realy thinking of it – they were just doing their duty and being themselves. This message is still important today and is told in a low-key way with the need for action etc.However, being low-key means that not all the tension of them being on a burning ship (that could explode) comes through. Likewise the majority of the danger they face remains with them and I never felt gripped or on the edge of my seat – the most I could say is that it was interesting rather than involving. The cast do well despite the irritating addition of an American to the cast (yes, the studios have been doing it that long!), but this is a minor annoyance. The rest are all good British stiff upper lips regardless of class or rank.Overall this is an enjoyable little film but I wanted it to be as exciting on the screen as it could have been. Sadly the low-key nature of the film makes the tension turn into more interest than edge-of-seat tension.