Naval History Forums

Hi!

What's the opinion of each one about this film?
Sink the Bismarck: 20th Century Fox, 1960. Kenneth More, Dana Wynter, Lewis Gilbert (director).
I think that it's an excellent moment for a new version!

I saw it many years ago and I liked it but don't remember much more. Now I want to get the DVD. A new version would be great! I would reserve my ticket at once.

cascoskuro wrote:Hi!

What's the opinion of each one about this film?
Sink the Bismarck: 20th Century Fox, 1960. Kenneth More, Dana Wynter, Lewis Gilbert (director).
I think that it's an excellent moment for a new version!

Having seen this film many times it is time for a remake, without the mistakes, and irrelevant sub-plots.

RF:

Having seen this film many times it is time for a remake, without the mistakes, and irrelevant sub-plots.

The subplots are necessary for dramatic purposes. That´s not the problem but how you do it. Yesterday I posted something about it in the Spanish part of this forum.

There are some high quality scenes from this 1960 movie that do not look to be archival footage. Does anyone know if the HMS Vangard might have been used for some of the interior turret shots from the Hood scene?
I'd image that the Vangard was the only surviving British Battleship at the time of this filming.
It's truely a disgrace that the Brits could not have preserved ONE single Dreadnaught as a memorial or museum ship.
How could they possibly have scrapped a legend like the HMS Warspite.

Yes. The loading sequences were filmed during one of, if not the last practice shoot conducted by Vanguard.

Where some of the external shots of the turrets taken on her as well, from memory they looked to have been the increased elevation mods done to them.

Again, yes.

It is a pity that some of the work here by the filmakers and attention to detail didn't extend to the actual plot of the film itself......

They did invent some fictional names and even gave Bismarck an AA kill, but, by and large it was pretty accurate, IMHO.

dunmunro wrote:They did invent some fictional names and even gave Bismarck an AA kill, but, by and large it was pretty accurate, IMHO.

Yes, but there was also the destroyer who's bow was blown off by a 15" hit in the movie.

The destroyer supposedly sunk was the "Solun" (SP?) during Bismarck's last night fight. There were some scenes of men jumping overboard that appear to have been made from a cruiser and not HMS Vanguard. Please correct me if I am wrong.
The scenes using HMS Vanguard really lent an aura of authenticity to the film and unfortunately, could not be achieved today as all RN battleships are gone.
It would appear that computer graphics of today's documentaries Sunk by Bismarck, Hood vs Bismarck, In Search of Battleship Bismarck indicate that battle shots could be made extremely realistically. The models in the 1960 movie were excellent but not all that could have been achieved.

The destroyer shown as being sunk was HMS Solent, named after the channel that separates the Isle of Wight from the English mainland. This destroyer was part of Vian's destroyer force. Only as far as I am aware there was no such ship and no destroyer was directly hit let alone sunk. The film I recall showed a torpedo hit on Bismarck that didn't happen on that last night.

The major errors were on the German side, especially the portrail of the character of Gunther Lutjens by Karel Stepanack. That is a matter of script and not film technology.

My "favorite" flaw is the models in the Denmark Strait battle going in the wrong direction, or firing on the wrong side, depending on how you look at it.

It is unfortunate how the film industry, in general, thinks that history must be "improved" to play to the general public.

I don't think think that was a case of deliberate ''improvement'' rather a cock up that nobody except pedants would notice.

Incidently there was also the ''explosion'' on POW's bridge, whereas in reality the shell didn't explode...... or the single hit reported to Lutjens by Lindemann, when in fact there were three.