writers_reign This was the first full screenplay credit - albeit shared with Richard Maibaim - for Nobby Clearke aka Bryan Forbes following an 'additional dialogue' mention on Alan Ladd's The Black Knight and essentially it's a Boy's Own Paper yarn based on events in World War Two. Once again the usual suspects are wheeled out to support Jose Ferrer and Trevor Howard, i.e. Vic Maddern, Bernard Lodge et al. It adheres like the limpets it features to the tried and trusted formula; ask for volunteers, weed out the demicks, show the rest in training, then the 'mission'. Basically what you see is what you get though as 'action' films go this is more than a tad insipid. Yana, a popular vocalist in the fifties, who began a career just as real singing was giving way to shouting off-key, has one song and one scene which serves to take your mind off the one-trick pony screenplay.

deschreiber The reviewers here so far like this film very much but seem to have various kinds of sentimental attachments to it. I don't have any--no memories of seeing it when I was young, no family, friends or acquaintances involved in the mission, no external notions from reading about it. I just watched it as a general moviegoer from the early 21st century. In my opinion The Cockleshell heroes has worn badly over the years.The first part, covering the selection of the participants and their training, has very little information in it--a tiny bit about limpet mines, a scene of soldiers climbing rock cliffs (no such landscape shows up later in the mission), perhaps one potentially interesting challenge forcing the men to use their wits to move around the countryside, but more close-order drilling than anything. Apart from the two officers and one soldier who goes AWOL to beat up a man who's been having an affair with his wife while he's away, there is almost nothing to distinguish one character from another. And there is no acting. The little tension between two officers leads only to a few moments of the two exchanging their points of view. Jose Ferrer delivers pretty much all his lines in the same tone of voice: it's a nice voice, it would be great narrating a documentary on some serious subject, but it has no emotional inflection in this movie.But what really spoils this long first section of the movie is the abundance of "cute" vignettes. A parachutist lands in cow manure, a hitchhiker gets a ride with a ridiculous fast-talking matron, the near-naked men run past a group of nuns. Tired, old tropes even for 1955, and far, far too many of them.Once the mission begins there is almost no dialogue, mostly scenes of men padding in their kayaks (called "canoes" in the movie). It's pretty dull stuff, and the director obviously thought music would be needed to keep audiences interested. But what awful music! On and on it goes, a symphony orchestra playing meaningless, vaguely military-sounding riffs non-stop, not in the least adapted to what's happening at the moment on the screen, just mindless orchestral noise that never stops. After a while I actually turned off the sound on my television to escape from the never-ending assault on my ears. And-- this is incredible-- during one supposed scene of deep thoughtfulness, when after a night of drinking an older officer is alone in a board room telling the sad story of his life to another officer, the same nonsensical orchestral tooting and shrilling continues ridiculously from beginning to end. It really should go down as one of the worst uses of music ever in the history of film making.As for action scenes, there's not much and not presented with any suspense. The climax, with explosions, is depicted with a few models in a studio.It's really terrible writing, terrible directing and an absence of acting.

ma-cortes ¨The Marines were formed 28 October 1664. On 29th April 1802 His Majesty King George III directed that they should ¨The Royal Marines ¨. At a critical stage of the war just Merchant ships operating from Bordeaux were seriously endangering the British Blockade . For political reasons saturation bombing was rejected . The Navy was unable to penetrate the defenses without air cover . The Royal Marines were given the job. Postmouth , England-March-1942¨.Based on historical events with screenplay by Bryan Forbes and Richard Maibaum from the story by George Kent , including technical advisers as Colonel Hasler and ex-Marine W.E. Sparks . The film starts when a Major of Marines is arrested by the patrol boat for canoeing in a restricted area . He is Major Stringer (Jose Ferrer) under orders to execute a dangerous mission. The captain Thompson (Trevor Howard) has been appointed as the administrative officer . The Major joined in a fit of boyish enthusiasm and the High Command put him in in charge of the unit , while the captain is a WWI veteran ; going to be awfully difficult to get used to taking orders from a young officer. The mission results to be the following : It seems German ships are running in and out of Bordeaux , getting past out blockade and bringing vital raw materials to the German war machine . The job is to get all the way up there , try to blow up those enemy ships in the docks , by means of cockleshell canoes , they'll be traveling at night and hiding in the day . The'll be dropped out somewhere outside the minefield , 75 miles to the target , should be able to make it in three or four nights of paddling . The team , a group of highly-trained volunteers (Peter Arne , Anthony Newley, Percy Herbert , Victor Madden , David Lodge , among others ) for hazardous service .This is an exciting movie about warlike fits dealing with the blowing up of German warships by an expert squadron of soldiers in cockleshell canoes . The picture contains thrills , action , suspense , and amusement when the training of the soldiers take place . First-class performances from Jose Ferrer as obstinate Major and Trevor Howard as second-in-command captain . Large plethora of secondary cast and new-comers actors as Percy Herbert, Anthony Newley , Peter Arne and Victor Maddern as stiff Sergeant Craig . Furthermore brief appearance of Christopher Lee as submarine commandant. Evocative cinematography in glimmer Colour by John Wilcox and Ted Moore , produced at Shepperton Studios , England , being one of the first English movies to be realized in Technicolor . Good musical score including patriotic tunes by John Addison and conducted by the usual Muir Mathieson with the London Symphony Orchestra. The producers -Irwing Allen and Albert R. Broccoli who subsequently would produce James Bond series- acknowledge the assistance given to them in the making of this film by ¨The Royal Marines¨ and other branches of the ¨Royal Navy¨. The motion picture is well played and directed by Jose Ferrer . Rating . Better than average, worthwhile watching .

Spikeopath World War II and German battleships are safely docked upriver in Bordeaux, Royal Marine Major Stringer and Captain Thompson select volunteers for a highly secretive mission. The mission is to canoe thru enemy waters and blow up the battleships, will they achieve their goal?, will any of them survive?, these are the questions asked about the men who became known as The Cockleshell Heroes.Directed and starring José Ferrer {Stringer}, The Cockleshell Heroes is an above average war picture telling a gutsy tale that almost beggars belief. The volunteers plucked for this mission come from a rag-tag band of men, it's almost like the Dirty 10 {as opposed to the Dozen}, but under intense training and controlled discipline courtesy of Trevor Howard's Captain Thompson, these men shape up just fine, and we believe that this mission, as hazardous as it is, may just succeed. The first half of the picture {during the training and selection process} is guilty of being a tad over jovial, but it doesn't harm the film per se, in fact it kind of lulls you into a false sense of expectation for the mission. The mission itself is capably handled and Ferrer manages to ring out the tension to close the film out successfully, perhaps a war film to not linger long in the memory, but none the less an entertaining piece about actual events. 6/10