Review – Damn the Defiant

This “heart of oak” action movie stands in sharp contrast to Ustinov’s version of Billy Budd, which came out the same year. While the Melville-inspired story at least tries to say something profound about the human condition, this one comes across as a big box full of sailing ship mutiny clichés wrapped up and sealed with an exclamation point. Despite the simple-minded storytelling, the movie does feature an interesting facet or two. Though it’s set on a British warship sailing the Mediterranean, the backdrop is the famous Spithead mutiny. Though this allows the introduction of at least some of the social issues surrounding shipboard misery, the focus nonetheless remains on the tried-and-true battle between cruel officers and hapless seamen. The plot twists a bit with the locus of the problem: the cruel officer in this case is a lieutenant, an aristocrat with “connections” who makes life miserable not only for the lower decks but also for his long-suffering captain (ably played by Alec Guinness). Overall this isn’t the worst sailing ship movie I’ve ever seen, but most of the pleasures to be found here lie in the small details of shipboard life rather than in the broad strokes of the story and the characters. Mildly amusing