Sailor of the King (1953)

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

when the young Canadian sailor was rescued and captured on the German warship, his p.o.w. status was the first time that i've seen in a war movie that a prisoner of war could be so easily walked around on board of the German warship and not be confined in the holding cabin under 24/7 watch. he seemed to be the only British sailor who's not wounded but still stayed with all the other wounded ones. he was escorted only by a German sailor to walk around having fresh air regularly in the day time. the way that a pow had been treated like a first class cruise ship was a shocking contrast to what we had seen in any WWII movie. then when the young sailor escaped, he chose to sneak off the ship without a shirt, and the shoes he wore were also quite convenient like a ballet dancer's, that's quite weird too. but the flaws i mentioned here are nothing if you've seen the whole movie, a great one!

A fine film, with good acting and excellent pacing-it never drags. This film will appeal to a wide audience, as the romantic and heart-breaking portions will appeal to one group, while the great action shots will appeal to a different audience.One thing that is almost unique is that this is one of the few films that shows the crews donning flash suits. Flash suits are made of white fire-resistant material to prevent burns from firing the large guns in such close proximity, and fires caused by enemy action. In most naval movies the crews don't the flash suits. For the main actors, there is an obvious reason- you can't see their faces, but in this film all the British crews don the suits (though they don't wear the hoods that cover the face and neck). This makes this film more accurate than almost all WWI and WWII naval films. Da Worfster, a previous reviewer, made the following comment: "Of course the ships are way to modern to be WWII vintage craft "-This is incorrect. The ships used in the film are HMS Glasgow, HMS Cleopatra, and HMS Manxman, and all three served during WWII, the Glasgow for the entire war, while the other two joined the war in 1941.One last historical note: British and German ships used different optical rangefinder systems. The German system was more accurate, but lost accuracy from the concussion of the gun firing during battle. The British system was not as accurate, but more rugged and better in dim light. The result of this is actually shown during this film, with the German shells straddling the British with the first shots, but then losing accuracy as the battle progressed, while the British shooting got better as they 'got the range'.All-in-all, a fine film, well made, and with better accuracy than most. Recommended.

...between Hiller and Rennie. "Sailor of the king" seems to be a lot of fiction. But it is a gripping story of two lovers in WW1 and the adventures of their son in WW2. I love the beginning of the movie with shy Michael Rennie and the charming Wendy Hiller. Then Jeff comes and takes the command. It is very thrilling to watch him shooting Peter van Eyck who is a famous german actor and plays very well too. I do not like the ending. It is too unrealistic. >

Excellent British naval war movie with Jeffrey Hunter. There are few movies of this type --as this is centered on sea action. I think of the movie "Pursuit of the Graf Spree" when watching this movie. This movie takes awhile to get going but is worth the wait.