The ship home safely from the sea has always been a warming image, but today it has been rendered infinitely more poignant, especially to Englishmen, by new and mortal perils waiting above and below the sea along the lanes traveled by the bottoms of British merchantmen. Out of those dangers—the whisk of a torpedo's wake, the sleek lines of an enemy raider breaking the fog, the reverberating fire of the big guns—and their threat to England's survival Michael Balcon has assembled "Convoy," now at the Rialto. And if the film fails in its frankly propagandistic mission it is because of spurious craftsmanship and because it is a little too self-consciously heroic. British seamen deserve a document more honest than this.
For Mr. Balcon has wandered away from the simple and moving story of getting home to England a group of cargo vessels assembled off the Norwegian coast. He has introduced the banal device of confronting the escort commander with a choice between duty and the love of a woman simultaneously in danger on a truant vessel. The authenticity of some actual shots at sea he has compromised by dovetailing them with scenes in which model cruisers and destroyers fight a furious but obvious duel in a studio tank. The actors, including Clive Brook and John Clements, are all so teddibly British in the face of grave danger that their calm becomes unconvincing. Put down "Convoy" as a film which melodramatically frittered away the possibilities of an epic idea.
CONVOY; screen play by Patrick Kirwan and Pen Tennyson; directed by Pen Tennyson; produced in England by Michael Balcon and released by RKO-Radio.
Captain Armitage . . . . . Clive Brook
Lieut. Cranford . . . . . John Clements
Capt. Eckersley . . . . . Edward Chapman
Lucy Armitage . . . . . Judy Campbell
Mabel . . . . . Penelope Dudley Ward
Mr. Matthews . . . . . Edward Rigby
"Shorty" Howard . . . . . Charles Williams
Commander Blount . . . . . Alan Jeaves
"Dot" . . . . . Michael Wilding
Lt. Commander Martin . . . . . Harold Warrander
Capt. Sandeman . . . . . David Hutcheson
Bates . . . . . George Carney
Knowles . . . . . Al Millen
Walker . . . . . Charles Farrell
Gates . . . . . John Laurie
Parker . . . . . George Benson
Minesweeper Skipper . . . . . Hay Petrie
His Mate . . . . . Mervyn Johns
Commander U-37 . . . . . Albert Lieven
Commander Deutschland . . . . . Hans Wengraf
Merchantman Skipper . . . . . Edward Lexy
Mate . . . . . John Glyn Jones
T.S. New York Times 17 January 1941
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