Movies - The Battle of the River Plate

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	Movies - The Battle of the River Plate

The Battle of the River Plate (1956) is a film by the British-based director-writer team of Powell & Pressburger. Its US title was Pursuit of the Graf Spee.

The film portrays the Battle of the River Plate, a naval battle of 1939, between a Royal Navy force of three cruisers (HMS Exeter, Ajax and Achilles) and the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee. It was to be the last film Powell and Pressburger made together through their Archers production company.

Unlike many British war movies of its time, The Battle of the River Plate treats the Germans as honourable opponents rather than as cardboard cut-out "Huns". This was a recurrent theme in Powell and Pressburger's films, including The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
.

The attention to detail is impressive, including the bells ringing before each salvo, the scorching on the gun barrels after the battle, and the accurate use of naval procedures. The scene where Harwood meets with the captains on Ajax is pure fiction, created for the movie, to explain the situation to the audience. The only omission is that the battle is seen entirely from the perspective of the British ships, plus the prisoners on Graf Spee.

The story

In the early months of WWII the German Navy sent out various surface raiders to attack Allied merchant shipping. The Royal Navy sent out various hunting groups to find them. The group that found Admiral Graf Spee were very lightly armed in comparison but went straight into the attack.

The hunting group was led by Commodore Harwood (Anthony Quayle) with Captain Woodhouse (Ian Hunter) on the Ajax, Captain Bell (John Gregson) on the Exeter and Captain Parry (Jack Gwillim) on the Achilles. Captain Langsdorff (Peter Finch) on the Graf Spee was much better armed than the three cruisers and did them a lot of damage. But the Graf Spee sustained some damage and was outplayed tactically.

The "cast" of ships

USS Salem, a Des Moines class cruiser, portrayed Admiral Graf Spee.
County class cruiser HMS Cumberland portrayed herself.
Crown Colony class cruiser HMS Jamaica portrayed County class cruiser HMS Exeter.
The Town class cruiser HMS Sheffield portrayed the Leander class light cruiser HMS Ajax.
The Leander class light cruiser INS Delhi (formerly HMS Achilles) portrayed herself.

HMS Birmingham was used by the production as a camera ship.
HMS Battleaxe was used as a camera ship for some scenes filmed off Malta.

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Movies - The Battle of the River Plate

The story

The "cast" of ships

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