HMS Defiant [Damn the Defiant!] **** (1962, Alec Guinness, Dirk Bogarde, Anthony Quayle, Tom Bell, Nigel Stock, Maurice Denham) – Classic Movie Review 6,382

Alec Guinness and Dirk Bogarde star in the stirring 1962 Napoleonic Wars sea saga film HMS Defiant [Damn the Defiant!] about the on-board clash on the British vessel in 1797.

Alec Guinness and Dirk Bogarde star in the stirring 1962 Napoleonic Wars sea saga film HMS Defiant [Damn the Defiant!] about the on-board clash on the British vessel the HMS Defiant between the humane but ineffectual ship’s skipper, Captain Crawford (Guinness), and his sadistic disciplinarian first mate, Lieutenant Scott-Padget (Bogarde) in 1797.

This historical adventure is told grippingly by director Lewis Gilbert in 1962. It is packed full of good elements. There is a compelling, intelligent screenplay by Nigel Kneale and Edmund H North, an ensemble of first-rate performances, and a fine production with authentic period background. Guinness and Bogarde are first rate, both relishing their roles. It is firmly, confidently, even defiantly old-style, traditional entertainment made at the time the British New Wave cinema was flourishing.

Columbia Studios borrowed the Defiant from MGM’s British studios, who had built it as the Bounty for the not dissimilar 1962 film Mutiny on the Bounty.

It is shot in Eastman Color and CinemaScope widescreen by Christopher Challis, produced by John Brabourne, scored by Clifton Parker and designed by Arthur Lawson. It is based on the novel Mutiny by Frank Tilsley, so they could have called it Mutiny on the Defiant. However, the ship in Tilsley’s novel is called the Regenerate, so they could have called it Mutiny on the Regenerate. Somehow, Regenerate isn’t really a movie title word, unless it’s a horror movie maybe.

It also features Anthony Quayle as Vizard, Tom Bell as Evans, Nigel Stock as Senior Midshipman Kilpatrick, Murray Melvin as Wagstaffe, Victor Maddern as Dawlish, Maurice Denham as Mr Goss the ship’s surgeon, Ray Brooks as Hayes, Peter Greenspan as Johnson, Bryan Pringle as Sgt Kneebone, Walter Fitzgerald as Admiral Jackson, and Johnny Briggs as Wheatley, the young sailor who is stripped to the waist and flogged.

Also in the cast are Richard Carpenter, Peter Gill, David Robinson, Robin Stewart, Brian Phelan, Toke Townley, Declan Mulholland, Joy Shelton (in her last film, as Mrs Crawford), Anthony Oliver, Russell Napier, Michael Coles, André Maranne, James Bolam, and Ann Lynn.

HMS Defiant is filmed at Denia, Alicante, Spain, and Shepperton Studios, Surrey, UK.

Guinness filmed it in a two-month break in the shooting of Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

Bogarde and Quayle were both Major in the Second World War, and Guinness was a Sub-lieutenant.

It had an A certificate and was advertised as ‘Not suitable for children’.

John Ernest Briggs MBE (5 September 1935 – 28 February 2021).

RIP acting stalwart and soap legend Johnny Briggs, who died on 28 February 2021 aged 85. He was in films as a child actor onwards, starting with a Bit Part in Hue and Cry (1947), and played Mike Baldwin for 30 years in Coronation Street. He also appeared in three Carry Ons – Carry On Up the Khyber, Carry On Behind and Carry On England.

RIP Murray Melvin (10 August 1932 – 14 April 2023).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6,382

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