THE SEA WOLVES: I Want Everyone Here to Smell Like a Distillery

The Sea Wolves (1980) – Directed by Andrew W. McLaglen – Starring Gregory Peck, Roger Moore, David Niven, Trevor Howard, Barbara Kellerman, and Patrick Macnee.

THE SEA WOLVES is an odd movie.

Given the title and the cover image they use at Netflix, I had thought I was getting a later version of an Alistair MacLean movie, which, as you know because you’re a loyal reader, I’d been reviewing for my appearance on Van Allen Plexico’s White Rocket Podcast. With Gregory Peck, Roger Moore, and David Niven looking so serious on the cover image, I was expecting a derivative MacLean film that would’t be as good, necessarily, but would still be entertaining.

Well, it’s not a MacLean film, but it is entertaining. It is, however, the kind of movie that doesn’t make any sense. The fact that it’s based on a true story makes the fact that it doesn’t make any sense make even less sense. And all of that is part of its charm.

Ostensibly, THE SEA WOLVES is a war movie. A World War II movie, to be precise, in which the Brits want to blow up a Nazi ship in neutral territory that is broadcasting detailed information about Allied ships, resulting in them getting blown to the bottom of the ocean by German U-boats. Being in neutral territory off the coast of Goa, the Brits can’t go after the ships without causing all sorts of international problems. Hamstrung, the Brits give the mission to the Calcutta Light Horse, which was part of the Cavalry Reserve in the British Indian Army.

What does all of that mean? It means old Brits living in India and playing lots of polo and drinking lots of beer get tasked with taking out a German controlled ship in neutral territory all the way on the opposite coast of India.

If this were a MacLean story, the film would start with Colonel Lewis Pugh (Gregory Peck) and Captain Gavin Stewart (Roger Moore) bringing in Colonel Grice (David Niven) and the rest of his Light Horse contingent, and then they’d go on a big adventure leading to a massive final action sequence. Of course, given that the Calcutta Light Horse isn’t a group of professional soldiers, but a group of ex-soldiers who have invited to not get involved in the war, maybe it would never be a MacLean story.

Instead of the band of ragtag brothers out to save the day, THE SEA WOLVES gives us a whole lot of Gregory Peck and Roger Moore playing Secret Agent Men in Goa, where Gavin finds time to fall in love with Mrs. Cromwell (Barbara Kellerman), who just so happens to be the Nazis #2 man in the Indian state.

It’s the relationship between Peck and Moore that gives SEA WOLVES its charm, and it is a very charming, enjoyable movie. It’s not a movie that I want to think too much about (the Brits only option is to do nothing or recruit some non-soldiers?) but if just sitting and watching it play out is a good time. Peck and Moore are fantastic playing off one another, and this is one of my favorite Peck performances. He’s so relaxed here that he plays almost every scene with this interior smirk that gives Pugh a persona that’s both professional and cocky. You’d think Moore would play the relaxed cocky one, and he does that, too. Instead of these performances either clashing with one another or canceling each other out, they actually work wonderfully together. It’s like watching two versions of the same man, separated by 30 years of experience.

I could easily have watched these two guys the entire movie and while that would not have been true to the spirit of what the actual Calcutta Light Horse did (and it’s to the movie’s credit that it makes sure you know this is a story based on real people), it would have been a more enjoyable movie. Once Pugh and Gavin split up – Pugh oversees the operation while Gavin stays in Goa to create distractions. All of the Light Horse guys are great but we get so little of them – and so little of David Niven – that their presence in the film distracts me from what I just spent the bulk of the movie watching.

I do not normally try to think for you, the reader. That’s just bad form. I’ll tell you what I think of a movie and attempt to stay away from ordaining what you think of a movie. That said, and to continue with my opening comments, if you come to the film wanting a war movie, you’re not going to get one. There’s very little World War II in the film. Instead, THE SEA WOLVES is like a relaxed adventure film that highlights an upper middle class British gentility. Whatever the purpose of the Light Horse originally was, in SEA WOLVES it’s just an old boy’s club where “men get to be men unless their woman is there to shake her head at them.” These are men looking for a bit of glory, who are unhappy to be considered out to pasture. They want to help. They want a bit of danger. And it’s … it’s almost tragic. They want to be important again and they treat the whole enterprise like they’re out on a fox hunt.

That doesn’t mean it’s not fun to watch them, because THE SEA WOLVES is the perfect example of what I used to call an AMC movie. I haven’t had cable in so long I have no real idea what kinds of movies that AMC still broadcasts, but back in the day they played a lot of movies I’d never heard of that nonetheless starred a bunch of people I had heard of. Using SEA WOLVES as an example – I’d see the ad for a film starring Peck, Moore, and Niven and then wonder why I didn’t instantly recognize what movie it was. How could I not know about a movie starring Gregory Peck, Roger Moore, and David Niven?

Then I’d watch the film and know why – it was thoroughly mediocre and maybe even disappointing. As time goes by we think of old actors only for their best or most memorable films. We forget that even big stars probably starred in a bunch of clunkers, and that was the role that AMC existed to fill, to remind us of those probably clunkers.

SEA WOLVES isn’t a clunker, though. It’s not a highly memorable movie but it’s a perfect example of what I wanted but usually did not get out of an AMC movie – an enjoyable film starring a bunch of actors I like doing things they’re good at. That’s SEA WOLVES. It’s not overly memorable, it’s not overly well made, but it is thoroughly entertaining, and proof that sometimes even war movies can be breezy and light and charming.

THE GUNS OF NAVARONE: The Only Way to Win a War is To Be as Nasty as Your Enemy

Guns of Navarone (1961) – Directed by J. Lee Thompson – Starring Gregory Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn, Anthony Quayle, Stanley Baker, James Darren, James Robertson Justice, Gia Scala, Irene Papas, Richard Harris, and Peter Grant.

Based on the Alistair MacLean novel of the same name, J. Lee Thompson’s THE GUNS OF NAVARONE is the kind of war movie in which the war itself is almost irrelevant. Concentrating on a small Allied assault force attempting to destroy two massive Nazi superguns held inside a Nazi fortress on the island of Navarone, the film follows its small cast through their mission from start to finish. World War II is something happening in the world, but the film doesn’t try to oversell the importance of this mission in an effort to create extra drama.

I appreciate that. It soaks the entire film with a sense of men trying to make a small difference in a big world. The goal of the mission – which no one in command thinks will be successful – is to take out those superguns so the Allied forces can mount a rescue mission on the nearby island of Keros, where 2,000 British troops are being held prisoner. The Nazis are due to kill the prisoners in a week as the film opens, and Commodore Jensen (James Robertson Justice) calls in Captain Keith Mallory (Gregory Peck) to help execute a mission conceived by Major Roy Franklin (Anthony Quayle). Said plan involves them scaling a seemingly unscalable cliff and then moving through Nazi-infested Greek territory just to get to the allegedly impregnable fortress to destroy the guns. Franklin and Mallory are joined by an international contingent of Corporal Miller (David Niven), Casey “Butcher of Barcelona” Brown (Stanley Baker), Private Spyros Pappadimos (James Darren), and Colonel Andrea Stavrou (Anthony Quinn).

There’s some history between some of the men which adds to the tension. Stavrou has promised to kill Mallory after the war because he blames Mallory for the death of his family. This shared history is a perfect example of how Thompson and screenwriter Carl Foreman use personal relationships to create conflict without having to resort to actors yelling at one another, and how they’re willing to create well-rounded, complex characters. Stavrou blames Mallory because earlier in the war, Mallory helped some injured Nazis make their way to a hospital and the uninjured members of that contingent ditched their injured comrades and ended up killing Stavrou’s family. Mallory confides in Franklin that this occurred earlier in the war, when he still held out some hope of a gentleman’s war being fought.

Franklin, of course, wants to know why Stavrou doesn’t just kill Mallory now, and Mallory relates that he’s counting on Stavrou wanting to kill Nazis more than he wants to kill him.

It’s a small moment, told on the bridge of a small fishing boat as the two men look out the front window to where Stavrou is working hard in a storm to keep the ship afloat. NAVARONE expertly balances the action and character moments in this manner throughout the film – if the action is big (as it is here in a massive sea storm), the character moments are often quiet, but when the action moments are quiet (like when they’re camped in an abandoned building inside Navarone, almost ready to make their assault on the guns), the character moments are large.

That the movie is made with such obvious skill helps me get through it. NAVARONE moves with the assured patience of a film that knows it doesn’t have to hurry. It knows you’re out at the theater for the entire night so it’s going to give you an entire night’s worth of entertainment. Clocking in at a robust 2 hours and 38 minutes, NAVARONE gives you plenty of spectacle and not a whole lot of characterization, but it would be wrong to categorize the movie as nothing more than a big, dumb action film. What NAVARONE does in between all that spectacle is allow for serious men to deal with serious issues.

Countering the Mallory/Stavrou conflict, Franklin and Miller are BWB: Bestest War Buddies. When Franklin gets injured during the ascent of the ocean cliff, Mallory steps into the leadership role, which Miller questions but doesn’t create a huge fuss over. It’s a smart move on the film’s part because it allows a growing tension to develop between Miller and Mallory. Franklin’s injury is so severe that he’s slowing the group down and thoughts are given to putting a mercy bullet in his brain. Franklin serves as the trigger for Miller’s eventual explosion at Mallory, but the real issue here is the conflict between leaders and followers. Miller has never sought promotion because he doesn’t want to make the big decision that Mallory has to make throughout NAVARONE. When Miller and Mallory have this argument deep in the film, it recontextualizes Miller’s actions through that point – throughout the film, Miller has had a more relaxed air about him. When others start to work, Miller makes a joke about claiming the room’s only bed. When the sea storm is threatening to sink the boat, he’s bringing coffee to Franklin and Mallory.

Peck and Niven are very good, but it’s Anthony Quinn’s movie. He provides the desperately needed spark of life throughout the film; where Mallory is grimly determined to see a mission through to wherever it’s inevitably going to fall apart, Quinn really makes me feel like Stavrou wants to kill Nazis. It would be wrong to say he’s enjoying what he’s doing, but Stavrou attacks life where Mallory studies it. Miller, in contrast, just sort of hopes the bad things go away.

What really wins me over is NAVARONE’s moral complexity – the group is on a mission that can’t possibly succeed (and it eventually succeeds only because the Nazis leave their front door open and their next empty), the group is faced with sacrificing Franklin for the good of the mission (Mallory eventually lies to him and leaves him with the Nazis knowing they’ll interrogate him and give up the plan he thinks is real), and when a traitor is revealed in their midst, it’s a woman (and the film wimps out by having another woman kill the traitor instead of Mallory, who’s being dared to kill her by Miller).

NAVARONE definitely moves slowly, but if you’ve got the time, it’s a satisfying watch. In less assured hands, we’d probably get a scene where Stavrou and Mallory have a big heart-to-heart, but that would betray the film’s quiet complexity. As mentioned, this is a serious movie with serious men. Today, they’re successful. Tomorrow, another mission surely awaits – even if time off has been promised, the war is rolling on.