Directed by:
Compton BennettCinematography:
Harry WaxmanComposer:
Clifton ParkerCast:
Trevor Howard, Richard Attenborough, Sonny Tufts, James Donald, Bernard Lee, Hugh Williams, Sidney James, Joan Rice, Hugh Hastings, Harry Towb, Anthony Oliver (more)VOD (1)
Plots(1)
In 1940, the Royal Navy is frantically recruiting for WWII so pulls Lieutenant Commander Fraser out of retirement to captain the HMS Ballantrae, herself recently re-commissioned and lent by the Americans to a seriously under-resourced British Navy. Despite an inauspicious start and multiple repairs, Fraser crafts the ship and its crew into an efficient fighting force, culminating in a daring mission to destroy a French dockyard which is crucial to the Nazis in maintaining their formidable battleships. The climax of the film is a fictional account of the real-life St Nazaire Raid of 1942 AKA Operation Chariot - led by a ship very similar to the Gift Horse itself, and celebrated as The Greatest Raid of All. (StudioCanal UK)
(more)Cast
Trevor Howard
UK
Best movies:
Producers' Showcase (1954) (series)
Gandhi (1982)
Brief Encounter (1945)
Richard Attenborough
UK
Best movies:
Jurassic Park (1993)
The Great Escape (1963)
Hamlet (1996)
Sonny Tufts
USA
Best movies:
The Seven Year Itch (1955)
So Proudly We Hail! (1943)
The Virginian (1946)
James Donald
UK
Best movies:
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
The Great Escape (1963)
Lust for Life (1956)
Bernard Lee
UK
Best movies:
Goldfinger (1964)
The Third Man (1949)
Father Brown (1954)
Hugh Williams
UK
Best movies:
Wuthering Heights (1939)
Doctor Faustus (1967)
Khartoum (1966)
Sidney James
South Africa
Best movies:
Father Brown (1954)
The Smallest Show on Earth (1957)
The Silent Enemy (1958)
Joan Rice
UK
Best movies:
One Wild Oat (1951)
His Majesty O'Keefe (1954)
The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952)
Hugh Hastings
Australia
Harry Towb
Ireland
Best movies:
If Tomorrow Comes (1986) (series)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Patton (1970)
Anthony Oliver
UK
Best movies:
H.M.S. Defiant (1962)
Sink the Bismarck! (1960)
The Entertainer (1960)
Charles Lloyd Pack
UK
Best movies:
The Exchange Student (1967)
If.... (1968)
The Mirror Crack'd (1980)
Meredith Edwards
UK
Best movies:
Tiger Bay (1959)
The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
The Cruel Sea (1953)
Glyn Houston
UK
Best movies:
Tiger Bay (1959)
The One That Got Away (1957)
A Stitch in Time (1963)
Olaf Pooley
UK
Best movies:
The Password is Courage (1962)
The Assassination Bureau (1969)
Sink the Bismarck! (1960)
Harold Siddons
UK
Best movies:
The Silent Enemy (1958)
The Dam Busters (1955)
A Night to Remember (1958)
Cyril Conway
UK
Best movies:
Evil Under the Sun (1982)
Getting It Right (1989)
Dead Man's Folly (1986) (TV movie)
Harold Coyne
UK
Best movies:
Gandhi (1982)
The Dirty Dozen (1967)
Batman (1989)
James Kenney
UK
Best movies:
Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951)
The Magic Box (1951)
Above Us the Waves (1955)