A lot of older movies that chronicle the various acts of derring do that occured throughout the entirety of World War II often focused on a gritty mission, or a plucky platoon tasked to take out a particular installation in order to slow the inexorable march of the Hun. However, every now and then, a movie would choose to focus less on the brave boys behind enemy lines and instead cast its focus wide like a fishing net of historical accuracy, impressively telling the tale of a mission in its entirety, from the guys actually doing the fighting to the more backroom aspects of the story as tight-lipped boffins glare at maps and models as they play a deadly game of Battleship with actual battleships.
Surely, one of the most famous of these war stories is the herculean task performed by the British in order to send an unsinkable German destroyer to make a fateful appointment with the bottom of the sea. Never has a movie title earned its exclamation point more as the order rings out to…. SINK THE BISMARCK!
Establishing itself as a fearsome powerhouse of the seas, the Nazi battleship known as the Bismarck is the swaggering big dog of the North Atlantic that is fully capable of whupping any other craft foolish enough to engage its eight 38cm guns or a hull thicker than a powerlifter’s neck. However, when word gets out that the German super-craft has set its sights on clearing the seas of Allied craft, its agreed that something has to been done and fast.
The man given the unenviable task of masterminding the three-dimensional chess game of tracking down and outmanuvering the Bismarck is Captain Jonathan Shepard, a steely taskmaster whose stern nature has him described by his peers as being “colder than a witch’s heart” but doesn’t preclude him from making the tough decisions from his underground war room in London.
After locating the sea faring juggernaut, Shepard immediately pulls the ricky gambit at diverting as many battleship he can from protecting vital convoys to enlist them into bringing down this formidable, floating foe, but after an early entanglement with HMS Hood and HMS Prince Of Wales leaves one of the two craft a smoking ruin and the other limping away in plumes of black smoke, matters get ever more desperate as the Bismarck’s smug Adrimal starts to flex even more over British naval forces.
Leaning on his capable and concerned assistant, Officer Anne Davis, to take up some of the strain, the relentless Shepard even selects the boat his own son is serving on to wade into the fight, hoping that stacking the deck against the Nazi powerhouse will finally yield results. However, if they don’t catch up with the Bismarck soon, it’ll end up refueling in friendly waters which will make the task of sinking the bastard utterly impossible, can Shepard – obviously cramming down his emotions about his beloved son as far down as they can go – finally corner the titular ship and fill the damn thing full of torpedoes and seawater?
In many cases, it’s not what Sink The Bismarck! does that makes it such a memorable endeavor, but it’s what it doesn’t do that makes it so memorable despite setting half of its action in an unremarkable office as we gaze upon Kenneth Moore’s mostly inscrutable facial expressions. One of the more notable aspects is that, for a movie that is literally all about smashing the advancing forces of Nazi Germany, it refreshingly resists the urge to wildly flag wave, instead wisely letting the actions of the British forces in all their shapes and sizes speak for themselves. Also, the German’s themselves (save for Admiral Günther Lütjens) are not portrayed as preening, sneering, pantomime villains, but instead as presented as young soldiers, not entirely that removed from the the men risking their lives in the other side of the war. This adds an immense amount of realism to a movie that prided itself on trying to be as historically accurate as it possibly could – which ends up being another impressive feather in its seafaring cap.
Director Lewis Gilbert – director of Educating Rita, Shirly Valentine, Alfie and both the best and worst that Roger Moore’s James Bond had to offer – had something of an unenviable task of bouncing from tense maritime maulings to trying to make a bunch of stiff upper lips talking about naval maneuvers as cinematic as 1960’s cinema could allow.
However, the most stirring thing about Sink The Bismarck!, is that it manages to sneak in a slight thread of humanity between orders in clipped British accents and the incessant roaring of battleship cannons as, buried away within the facts of the actual event is a subtle, but touching subplot involving Moore’s chief of operations refusal to admit that emotions have any place during wartime while Dana Wynter’s kindly assistant stealthily helps him vent his suppressed anxieties with the occasion, well timed pep-talk. In fact, in a film loaded with terse dudes in uniform, on of the most memorable moments is when Shepard finally gives himself a brief moment in private to shed a tear after he receives word of the son who had gone missing after he himself sent the ship he was stationed on after the Bismarck.
Rare, but powerfully emotional moments aside, Sink The Bismarck! nicely corners the market when spelling out how things went down in a sober and sensible manner, offsetting the intelligent, talky bits with devastating battle scenes and vice versa. Watching Shepard weigh up the options in order to nail his target and witnessing the German Admiral become ever more confident thanks to a telegraphed pat on the head from his führer is breathlessly complimented by experiencing HMS Hood get virtually obliterated within minutes of engaging of the German war machine, or a moment when British planes mistakenly launch torpedoes against their own ships only for disaster to be averted by some faulty, magnetic detonators.
To switch over to picky mode for a second, as crisp and smart as Sink The Bismark! is, those expecting a more rambunctious, wartime romp might find all the staring at maps and models a little dry for their tastes, the climatic, cathartic pounding of the titular craft is as spectacular as you’d hope.
Finally, for those of you perturbed that my review has somehow given the game away for this true story, the poster pretty much spells things out before you’ve even taken your seat. Thus, Sink The Bismarck! shows reveals its finally virtue – a movie with the confidence to slap its ending on the poster that still has the audience in the palm of its hand to still deliver a payoff that still thrills.
The Bismarck may sink, but your heart will quietly be in your throat.
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